Granted, that wouldn’t necessarily matter too much to Fred, since all he had to do was use his Mana Sight to pick out danger even in complete darkness. He knew Eisa had a trait that allowed her to see a little better in the darkness, but it probably wasn’t nearly as good as his own perception.
“You probably can’t see it, but there are a few more of the vines surrounding my bear, so don’t rush out there yet. I can see…something moving around out there as well, though I can’t make it out,” Eisa whispered to him, once he was close enough to her.
Even though she couldn’t see what it was, Fred could. High up near the ceiling, 15 giant spiders were rappelling down from what he assumed were webs; as soon as they hit the ground, they skittered forward on legs that were the size of his arm. Their bodies were nearly the size of his torso, though without the room being a little brighter, he couldn’t see exactly what they looked like.
Vine Spider (Level 1)
Vitality: 15
Attack: 3, Acidic Poison
Defense: 4
“There are 15 large Vine Spiders descending from the ceiling and heading this way.”
Eisa turned to him with another shocked expression on her face. “How could you possibly…you know what? Never mind – I’ll take your word for it. I hate spiders…” she mumbled, while looking back into the room, squinting as if she could see something if she tried hard enough.
Within a few seconds, fortunately – or unfortunately, since she apparently doesn’t like spiders – the room’s defenders arrived and immediately jumped on the bear, covering it until Eisa and Fred could barely see it struggling beneath them. For the first time, it appeared as if the bear was being affected, as they could hear a faint sizzling; the acidic poison the spiders were ineffectually trying to inject inside of the bear was instead staying on the outside and slowly dissolving its fur. It probably wasn’t going to look great once they finished the fight, but it wasn’t actually getting hurt.
“I really don’t want to get any of that acid on my dress…” His companion seemed to be talking to herself.
“I put some of my Essence I received from the previous two rooms into my Body stat, do you think they could get through my skin?”
Broken from her detached perusal of the fight, Eisa looked at him in concern. “You already did that? Normally you want to wait until after the dungeon delve, so that you can get used to the changes in your body. Well, no harm done it appears; though, I would advise against doing any more of that until we get out of here – and for when you pick a class to start out with.”
Makes sense I guess – if I had fallen flat on my face in the middle of a fight or fell into a trap because I lost control of my body, that probably wouldn’t have ended well.
Eisa continued. “As for whether they could hurt you – absolutely. Even with a stronger body, they can still probably at least pierce the skin and inject that nasty acid inside of you. They might not be able to rip off chunks of skin or even your arm now, but it will still hurt. Immensely. As for me, I doubt they would seriously injure me; however, my dress would fare just as well as my bear’s fur. I knew we should’ve gotten you some better armor before we left...” Her mumbling trailed off at the end.
“Well, it’s too late for whatever that is now – what do you think we should do?” he asked.
She thought about it for a moment, before replying. “Ok, here’s what we do…”
* * *
Eisa watched Fred jump onto the back of her animated bear, kicking two of the giant spiders out of the way in his efforts. The semi-transparent Shield of Darkness she had cast on him shimmered faintly as the spiders nearby turned their attention to their new target, biting at him but being repulsed by the barrier. She could only cast the defensive ability approximately once an hour – which was how long it took her to recover from the soul-draining depression it caused – so she hadn’t used it earlier; things being as they were, however, she thought it was appropriate in this instance.
It wouldn’t last long, but it was time enough for Fred to go to work on the vines holding the bear. They were tough, but with a determined two-hand approach, he sliced through the first one within ten seconds. She saw them both drop a little when the vine parted and Fred almost slipped and fell off; luckily, he was able to snag one of the other vines and hung on.
With his feet steady underneath him, she watched the pair of knives flash again, hastily sawing through another of the strangling vines. She was starting to get worried that her shield would wear off before he finished; when he only had about fifteen seconds left, the second vine split, followed by another drastic drop. This time, the jerk of the sudden drop snapped the last two vines, freeing the bear – who suddenly fell and rolled over two of the spiders that were trying to reach Fred, squishing them flat with a squelching sound.
Fred almost got caught along with them but was able to turn his sudden fall into a clumsy roll to the side. Eisa watched him as he got to his feet just as the shield disappeared, bracing himself for the inevitable swarm of monsters. Fortunately, he was saved from the pain and misery of acidic poison when her animation was able to swipe at a passing spider, pulling all of their attention back to the greater threat.
Now that it could move, her bear was able to land a few glancing blows, but the spiders were so quick – as compared to the lumbering bear – that they were easily able to skitter out of reach. It didn’t matter too much, though, as he was there more to grab and try to keep their attention while Eisa and Fred did their own work.
Her Lifedrain spell was extremely effective at singling out monsters; it worked on them from the inside, meaning that there was no way for its friends to see who was attacking it. This meant that when she used the ability, the others wouldn’t attack her unless she gave them a reason to; unfortunately, the ones she targeted somehow always knew who was attacking them, so she had to be prepared for retaliation.
The downside of the spell was that it was channeled – so it wasn’t just a single shot. The time it would take to kill even these easier monsters was still a few seconds, more than enough time for one of them to reach her with its dress-ruining acid.
That was where Fred came in; once they headed toward her, he would intercept them, stabbing down and damaging them. If he ended up not being able to do enough damage to kill them, the delay would be more than enough for her spell to finish them off.
For the first five – everything went perfectly to plan. He was barely strong enough to pierce the bodies of the spiders with his knives – strong enough, however, to finish them off quickly. She felt her own Vitality swell as the spell siphoned a small portion of the spider’s life force and added it to her own. After a while, she was as well and healthy as could be, and everything else that came her way was wasted. Her Power was steadily going down, unfortunately, but she was still sitting at a little below half.
But when the sixth horrific monster was intercepted by Fred, the remaining seven spiders seemed to grow wise to their strategy and broke off from her bear; her companion managed to finish off the spider he had stopped but went down under an onslaught of jumping monstrosities.
He started screaming as they bit into him, the acidic poison they injected eating away at his insides. From what she could see, she was correct in her estimation: they could pierce the skin but couldn’t do much more than that. That, though, was enough to finish him off quickly unless she intervened.
“Hold on, Fred – I’ll heal you in a moment!” With a quick instruction to her bear, she started firing out Shadow Strikes, not caring if it drew their attention or not. She wasn’t going to risk Fred’s life just to save her dress; there was no way she was about to let another person die on her watch.
The quickly flung bolts of pure darkness impacted one after another, most destroying them immediately. Three went down in as many seconds, but the remaining four turned their attention toward her and jumped toward her, crossing the distance in one hop. Her reanimated bear managed to catch on
e in the air, slamming it down beneath its paw and ending its attack with finality. The last three, however, impacted her so hard she fell onto her back, covered just as similarly as Fred was just a moment ago.
The difference was she wasn’t getting hurt by the acidic bites the spiders inflicted on her. She could hear sizzling and feel the pressure against her skin, but it was her dress that got the worst of it. Stupid spiders! I loved this dress!
With anger at their disrespect for her fashion choice, she shot one of the spiders assaulting her point-blank in its face with another Shadow Strike, causing it to explode into hundreds of disgusting fragments. She hadn’t been hurt before, but the explosion caused a chunk of spider chitin to cut a thin line across her cheek; taking a more cautious approach, she used Lifedrain on another one, healing herself at the same time. By the time it was dead, her bear had gotten close enough to smash the unaware spider into the ground, causing its guts (as well as its ruptured acidic poison sac) to flow all over her dress, destroying even more of it.
She lay there, stunned at the sudden turn of events; the spider corpses around her started to melt into the ground, which also had the fortunate side effect of cleaning off all the goo from her body, clothes, and even the bear’s paws. She could see and feel the Essence flowing into her hand, as well as what sounded like a greater amount of coins hitting the floor.
Fred!
Eisa couldn’t believe she forgot about her companion for a moment, while she was complaining about her ruined attire. She pulled herself off the floor and stumbled across the space between them, only now noticing that it was quiet – his screaming had quieted and stopped completely at some point.
Arriving at his side, she saw that he wasn’t breathing, though that didn’t necessarily mean he was dead. He probably wished he was, as a good portion of his clothes had been burned away by the acid and his skin was black and pocked where the poison had eaten away at his skin and muscles – and even his internal organs.
She felt for a pulse and could detect the smallest flutter; he’s not dead! She immediately used her Bind Soul ability, creating a transparent spiritual bubble around him that would keep his soul inside his body for about a minute until she had a chance to heal him. She’d never had to use it before, but she had unlocked it…just in case.
After that, she chain-casted Vitality Transfer, ignoring the pain it caused her as it went to work healing his body. Thirty seconds later, she stopped as he had been fully healed, taking nearly a third of her Vitality to do it. He had been so far gone that she was amazed that he was still alive when she got to him; as a result, she ended up having to heal him as much as someone with twice or three times how much Vitality he probably had.
He opened his eyes, staring at her through the slowly fading Soul-binding bubble (that she was sure he couldn’t see – because only she should be able to see it), before a smile lit his face. “Phew, thanks – that was close! By the way, aren’t you cold?” he remarked, looking past her face.
She looked down and she could feel the heat filling her cheeks; there were the barest scraps of her dress left on her, none of which really covered anything.
This man is infuriating.
Chapter 25
Fred looked up (and down) at Eisa, noting the extreme damage done to her dress. She must’ve taken the attention of all the rest of the spiders, pulling them off of me so that I wouldn’t die. He had already passed out from the pain and didn’t know when it had happened, but he didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell her that he wouldn’t have died. Well, not right away. Given enough time, I’m sure that having most of my body destroyed would probably have fulfilled one of the requirements for permanent death that Deecy had mentioned.
At his comment about the cold, which Fred thought was entirely appropriate because even he could feel how cold it still was in the dungeon, Eisa turned away, covering herself up. He remembered Regnark mentioning something about “modesty”, and how it wasn’t appropriate going around naked – which he had done one night when the fire had been exceptionally hot. He assumed this had something to do with it, though when it came to clothes Fred thought of it merely as a way to fight off the cold air.
He had figured that if he was ever far enough south that the weather was nice, he wouldn’t be wearing any at all – though he was beginning to suspect there were things he could wear for protection. Something about “armor” that Eisa had mentioned.
Fred was grateful for her timely “rescue” and the healing, which – looking at his own destroyed clothes alone – he figured probably would’ve taken his mana more than a day on its own to heal. However, he didn’t know what to do other than say thanks; suddenly, though, the answer came to him.
Making a decision that he was slightly worried might come back to haunt him, he stood up and approached the back of Eisa, who was currently pulling a dark-red dress out of her little magical pouch at her hip. “Before you put that on, I want to do something that will show my appreciation for saving me.”
She stiffened at his approach and again at his words. “Don’t worry about it, you’d do the same for me.”
Probably. But it’s more for a selfish reason. He was beginning to like Eisa and would like to consider her a friend, but he also remembered how she had tried to take advantage of him so soon after they had met. Her continued safety and presence by his side was beneficial to his own advancement, which would lead to his being able to get some answers from a dungeon core one day. That being said, he didn’t want anything bad to happen to her because of him.
“I would, but I’d still like to do something for you.” Before she could say or do anything, he touched a scrap on the back of her dress that was barely attached, gathering it up in his hand and closing his eyes.
She yelped at the sudden touch, even though he hadn’t actually touched her skin or hurt her. “What do you think you’re doing—”
Fred blocked her out, quickly concentrating on the feel of the soft woolen dress beneath his fingers, and picturing what it looked like before, he pushed some of his available mana into the image. He let go of the scrap, feeling it pull away from him as he opened his eyes, watching the black dress suddenly form back into one, complete piece; from the back, he critically looked at his handiwork and noticed that it wasn’t perfect – the bottom was an inch or two shorter than it should be. Oh well, next time I’ll get it right.
Instead of being thankful – like he thought she would be – Eisa ended up screaming in what he assumed was either excitement or fright; he couldn’t tell which one it was. She frantically felt all over her dress, running her hands over the fabric like she couldn’t believe it was whole. Eventually, she turned around to look at Fred with wide eyes; it was only then that he determined that it wasn’t the excitement that he was hoping for: it was fright.
He put his hands up, cutting her off from saying anything. “I didn’t mean to scare you, it’s just another one of my…skills. Here, watch – I’ll do it to myself as well.” So saying, he looked down at his own ragged clothes, pushed mana into their familiar “whole” image in his mind, and watched them form and coalesce into what appeared to be a brand-new pair of pants, shirt, and warm coat. It wasn’t fancy, but it was warm. And modest he supposed.
“How…who…what are you?” she asked, and Fred was happy to see that at least some of the fright from her face had faded, only to be replaced by what he suspected was curiosity.
“I…can’t tell you right now, and besides – you probably wouldn’t believe me. Just…keep this only between us if you can,” he replied hesitantly. I can’t tell her I’m a dungeon core; in her world, I’m the enemy – or, at least, I’m the embodiment of all the pain and suffering she had to go through to get where she is today. One day I might tell her if it helps me with my objective in the future…but not today.
She looked unconvinced and looked like she wanted to ask some more questions despite his obvious reluctance to answer. Instead, she shoved the dark-red dress bac
k into her pouch – where it instantly disappeared – and said, “Fine. But we’re having a long conversation once we get out of here.”
Whatever suits you. He didn’t respond either way, but she must’ve taken it as an acceptance because she walked toward the far side of the room, her patchy-furred animated bear leading the way. Once the dungeon defenders in the room had been eliminated, the mana had drained from the remaining vines that were part of the initial trap, leaving the rest of the room safe. He wasn’t sure how she knew that was the case, but he assumed it was common knowledge that she had gained over time – and from “delving” into countless dungeons.
Before he followed, he took a look at his Adventurer Status and his available Mana, to see how much had happened in the last room.
Fire Mana: 57/120
Water Mana: 56/119
Unconverted (Unusable) Mana: 3734
Dungeon Adventurer Syndicate Interface
Name: Fredwynklemossering
Class: Unselected
Rating: G-2nd
Essence Needed to Rate-up: 123
Total Essence: 177
Available Essence to Distribute: 97
Unconverted Essence: 37340
Dungeon World: A Dungeon Core Experience Page 17
