by Jez Cajiao
Arrin was in the very center of the group, Magic Missiles flaring to life and hurtling across the intervening space to hammer, one after the other, into the right leg of the torturer.
He screamed, his shock making him miss the chance to deflect or dodge them, and as his knee exploded, the cap hanging from a shredded section of cartilage, he collapsed to the floor.
I’d told Arrin to focus on the main group, but I didn’t mind his change of target, as I saw the state of the group in the middle. One fell toward me, the skin on his face running like candlewax, eyes a milky white that would never know sight again, short of major magical assistance. My naginata flared to life, fire filling it, and a hissing sound erupted as the blood in his heart boiled, the blade piercing through his now crisped and ruined clothes to bisect it. I gave it a twist to be sure, then yanked it back, flipping it over and bringing the metal-clad end down hard onto another Drow’s skull, a loud crack filling the cavern as the bone fractured. A third Drow fell to the floor from where he’d been hunched over, his limbs twitching, the smoldering remnants of the campfire going to work on his dying form.
Barrett was past me in an instant, his greatsword flashing out to chop into his target, dipping and twisting to rise again, blood spraying from a severed artery as the Drow fell back, almost decapitated.
Lydia was past me as I looked up, vaulting over the body of the Drow they’d killed themselves, only to land and smash her wicked flanged mace into the upraised arm of another of the group.
The crack of his forearm was audible, joining the dying echoes of mine’s skull to fill the cavern, overtopping even their screams and shock.
The other sound, slowly rising in the room, past our guttural roars of anger, determination and hatred, and the screams of shock and pain of the Drow, was the cheering of the prisoners. They had been crouched, terrified, three of them left more or less intact as they watched one of their companions being skinned.
Now they saw their hated enemies getting slaughtered, the tables turned in seconds as we tore through them, and they roared their approval. The Drow who had fallen close to their cage was grabbed by two of the captives, pulling him tight against the bars, and holding him as he thrashed.
He’d lost his knife, but the Drow’s superior strength showed itself as he grabbed the bars and tore himself free with a scream of pain and fury, glaring at the lesser beings that had dared to touch him with a look that promised retribution.
The look lasted only a second, as the next barrage of Magic Missiles, guided by Arrin’s will, landed unerringly, one after another, in the back of the Drow’s neck.
Exploding a millisecond apart, they took out the upper layer and fat of his neck first, then fractured his spine, and the final one severed the spinal cord, causing him to collapse to the floor, the prisoners grabbing at him and yanking him forward. They viciously beat his skull, the only part they could reach with any force, until it cracked, and then they kept on going.
The final sight that Drow saw was the very prisoners that he’d excitedly dismembered and skinned for so long, beating his paralyzed and pain-wracked skull in.
Lydia had managed a second blow to her target, dodging the clumsy stab aimed at her by her still stunned opponent. The Drow she faced had lost an eye to the flames, and now had a broken right arm, the bone sticking out through the split skin of his forearm. It didn’t take her long to smash him in the face with her shield, knocking him back onto his arse. Barrett rushed around the other side of the fire, getting the final Drow’s attention, and circling him, forcing his back to the blaze.
I grinned as I looked over the guttering flames and saw Barrett neatly backing his target towards me, and I stepped forward, the blade of my naginata spearing forward to take the Drow in the back, erupting from his chest between a pair of ribs in a spray of blood.
Barrett wasted no time and swung a great blow, his two-handed greatsword flashing left to right and relieving his target of his head, while Lydia stepped forward, smashing the rim of her shield down and crushing the final Drow’s throat.
She spat down on the panicking, slowly asphyxiating creature, then left it to die.
We looked around the room, confused. There was nobody else here, but as the prisoners went silent, hunching down in fear, I noted the direction they stared so intently, and I looked up.
In the darkness above us, clear to my DarkVision, had I only thought to look, was a web. It was smaller than Ashrag’s, but still huge by any normal sense of scale, and three sets of eyes glared down at us from it.
The web shifted as the centermost figure moved, a huge Drider, a Drow from the waist up, in the form of a beautiful Elven woman with long white hair, and pale grey skin and covered in silver and black leather armor. From the waist down, she was a spider, with eight long legs that shifted her along effortlessly, the tips giving rise to a clicking sound as they touched the nearest wall. Her bulbous abdomen lifted and dipped in excitement as she moved, slowly circling us.
A movement from one of the other two occupants of her web drew my attention, and I bit down hard on my revulsion.
They were Drow, but they had been horribly mutated somehow. In addition to the regular humanoid form, they each had several spider-like legs coming out from their backs, additional eyes spread across their heads, and fangs.
I practically shit myself looking at them.
I’d been doing my best to get over my entirely fucking reasonable hatred of spiders, after making the deal I had with Ashrag; after all, I was going to need to deal with her and her kin on a regular basis, but this? Fuck this shit.
What I saw when I looked back at the Drider, and I’d missed in my original freak out, was that she held a whip in her right hand, and in her left…
“Oracle!” I cried out at seeing her tiny form trapped inside a cube the Drider held.
She looked terrible; she’d changed to the smallest form I’d seen yet, less than three inches high, and she glowed with a sickly green light that pulsed and wavered.
“You like my pet, trespasser?” The Drider asked, her voice light and relaxed, the tone far more suited to a conversation in a summer garden about a puppy. I glared up at her, my already tightly wound nerves twanging in fury at the sight of the creature that kept Oracle from me.
“Let her go,” I growled up at the Drider, and she laughed at me, daintily walking down the wall opposite to come to a rest atop the large building in the middle of the cavern.
“Now why would I do that? Hmmm?” she asked playfully, hanging her whip on a bony spike on her hip and tapped lightly at her ruby red lower lip. The contrast between the grey, almost lifeless skin and her lips was jarring, not to mention the flicker of bone white perfect teeth flashing as she spoke, long incisors visible. “You trespass here, in my home, kill my servants, and demand I give up my pet? I think not.” She smiled evilly at me, the incisors flashing as they lengthened noticeably, her pupils beginning to glow red.
“You took her, bitch. Give her back, or I’m gonna stick this somewhere very private.” I warned her, hefting my naginata, a touch of mana channeled into making it glow.
“Pretty,” she hissed; her eyes fixed hungrily on my weapon. “I will take that from you, child."
"I will feed on you, let you recover, and feed again, before slowly stripping the skin from you, inch by inch, to make a blanket for my nest. You will join all your kind who trespass in the deep places of the realm, as playthings for your betters!”
I looked where she pointed, noticing piles of cloth that had been laid on the webbing, where they’d been tossed carelessly. I frowned and spat as I realized what they were. The crazy bitch had made her Drow skin people, and she collected them.
“I’m gonna enjoy this, bitch,” I glared up at where she crouched, before focusing on Oracle. “Hold on, Oracle; I’m coming for you,” I said.
I twisted, a slight movement from my left warning me just in time to avoid a small triangular blade that flashed past my face. I looked back al
ong the line of the throw, finding that one of the mutated Drow had slunk down to hang from the wall off to one side.
I threw out my left hand, a Firebolt flashing to life. My ‘go-to’ spell was now almost effortless in its casting. I saw another notification start to pulse in my vision, and I ignored it, along with the others, shouting back to my team as the spell burst against a previously invisible shield that appeared over my target,
“Kill those two; I’ll take the bitch.” I snarled, only to hear mocking laughter float down from the top of the building. Her whip flashed out, cutting a furrow across my chest. The wicked barbs that tipped it flashed in the reflected firelight as it flowed back to her.
“Can you even reach me up here, mortal?” she gloated, her voice dripping with condescension.
“Your kind are good for little, beside the worth of your hides, which are silkily soft, when treated right. I’ll make sure…gah!” She cried out, spinning and smashing her right hand out with blurring speed, batting Bane from the air as he leapt at her.
He was sent hurtling to the floor across the room, her enhanced strength evident in the speed and force of his descent.
She lifted her right hand, staring at the cut across her forearm in disbelief, before howling in rage as she realized what had happened.
“Deathbloom!” She howled in fury, dropping Oracle’s prison to the floor and spinning around, searching the webbing above her for something. In the time that it took her to identify what she needed, I’d chugged one of my more powerful mana potions, feeling my mana jump by a hundred and thirty points, then set off running, the sounds of screaming and fighting roaring to life behind me as I went.
I ran and jumped, planting one foot on a pile of stacked boxes to kick off and smack against the wall of the building she stood on. She was off, her legs flashing as she fled to her nest, just as I grabbed the edge of the roof, pulling hard. I dragged myself upwards, swinging my naginata over the edge to clatter against the flat roof.
I scrabbled against it, slowly sliding backwards, until I released my weapon, and used both hands to pull myself atop the building.
By the time I maneuvered myself over the edge of the roof to lie on my back, the Drider was in her nest, screaming abuse down at us as she frantically scuttled across it, headed towards an alcove high above the ground.
I lay there and grinned, casting Firebolt again, putting the minimum mana into it as I cast and threw it upwards, casting again as fast as I could. Firebolt after firebolt flew true, the Drider spitting acidic hatred at me as she fled, promises of what she’d do to me and mine, and laughing at my poor aim.
I grinned up at her as I fired the last two Firebolts off, knowing what she didn’t…I hadn’t been aiming at her.
The flaming spheres barreled through the air, passing over her head, to smash into two more patches of webbing, their flames flaring out and spreading wildly. The fires were typically short-lived, but in webbing, they had found a perfect fuel: air on all sides, dust and debris stuck to it, and the silken strands went up like rags doused in gasoline.
When the last two patches caught, the tension was too much, and strands began to snap, first one, then two, then six, then dozens. The end flashing backwards under the pressure of the Drider’s weight, the web came loose, and she screamed in rage and fear as it began to fall, curling up around herself as her weight sped the end of her nest.
I had a split second in which I grinned up at her, satisfaction radiating from Amon, until reality caught up with me, and I realized what rested directly underneath her.
“Well, fuck me sideways!” I grunted, my hand moving practically of its own volition to grasp my naginata, lifting it and bracing its base against the roof. I curled up around my weapon and shoved my last few points of mana into it, causing it to flare to life, flames licking up the blade to meet the body that fell towards me.
***
Bane groaned as he shook himself, scowling up at the creature that had batted him away so easily. Hissing in pain as a row of broken ribs made their presence known, he watched as light flared from atop the building, before being snuffed out as the enormous Drider smashed through the roof, vanishing inside with a scream and a crunch of falling masonry.
The walls shuddered, swayed for an eternity, before falling inwards to collapse one atop the other, burying the Drider, as well as the one he’d sworn his life to protect.
He roared in anger as he forced himself to his feet and staggered when his leg gave out, falling to the floor and staring in shock at the cloud of dust and debris that marked the collapsed building.
***
Lydia and Cam had rushed at the closest of the Drow mutations as soon as they’d moved down the wall, while Miren sent arrow after arrow flashing through the air, only to be batted away by its impossibly fast limbs.
It screamed in rage and flung itself forward through the air, a silver serrated sword held in each fist, black and silver accented armor flashing in the dark cavern. It landed lightly, darting forward, almost faster than Lydia could see. The force of the impact against her shield staggered her, before the second blade smashed her sword aside. The Drow leaned back and kicked her in the chest, sending her crashing to her back.
The freakish thing spun then, its long white hair streaming behind him as it twisted, leaning back to allow Cam’s massive axe to flash through the air overhead.
Cam grunted, staggering back as the Drow flipped itself back upright, seemingly barely brushing the floor with the pommel of one sword to propel itself. As it straightened, it stabbed out, the wicked blade kissing Cam’s cheek and slicing effortlessly through the flesh.
Lydia rolled, trying to get back to her feet, only to have her leg kicked out from under her, sending her crashing to the floor again in a clatter of heavy armor.
The Drow easily dodged first one, then a second arrow, before stabbing out and driving its sword deep into Cam’s chest.
Cam let out a gasp of pain as he dropped his axe, the sight of the sword standing out from between his ribs shocking him into immobility.
Barret and Jian were having little more luck with their Drow as it flashed across the intervening distance between them. It threw tiny three-sided daggers at them, each cutting the air with a ripping sound like silk being cut with a razor, before shredding Barrett’s cheek, shoulder and upper left arm.
The throwing knives sank deep into his flesh, the poison that coated them paralyzing him as he fell forward and began to bleed out.
Arrin and Stephanos fired Magic Missiles and poison-laden arrows at the mutated Drow as it closed the distance between them, its magical shield flaring and dying. Just as it closed with Jian, Arrin ran out of mana, while Stephanos didn’t dare fire, for fear of hitting his friend.
Jian and the Drow exchanged blows, his two scythes flashing and barely beating back the Drow’s single blade. It grinned at him and lunged closer, flowing past his guard like water around a boulder. One of its spider-like legs suddenly flashed out, stabbing him in the left forearm and piercing his leather bracer with ease.
He grunted and dropped that scythe, his fingers spasming nervelessly, as the Drow lunged forward, mouth opening wide, fangs aimed for his throat.
Jian closed his eyes reflexively, only to hear a hiss of displaced air as something passed over his shoulder at tremendous speed. A thunk announced its impact into the Drow’s open mouth, the quivering fletching of Stephanos’s arrow brushing Jian’s shoulder as his eyes flared open again.
The Drow stood motionless, the arrow embedded deep in its throat. The tip pierced the base of its brain and quivered, the mutant creature’s forward momentum vanishing as suddenly as a sparrow hitting a window.
It collapsed backwards, and Arrin frantically chugged his remaining mana potions, one after the other, hissing at the pain of the mana migraine that threatened to drop him to his knees, as Stephanos stood rooted in shock, his bow string still vibrating from the killing shot.
“I…I …he was…” he mutt
ered, and Miren screamed at him.
“Help me!” she begged, sending another arrow flashing forwards, only to be batted aside derisively by the Drow that stood over Cam.
Stephanos shook himself out of his shock and fumbled another arrow from his quiver. The Drow-made bow granted just enough of a boost to his archery skill that he’d known he could make the shot, releasing it to blur through the air. The projectile had barely missed slamming into the back of Jian’s skull, instead killing the Drow as they danced their dance of death.
Now Stephanos growled, heaving back on his bow and taking aim at the Drow as it slowly twisted the blade in Cam’s chest, tearing his last breath free, before shucking the suddenly cooling meat that had been their friend off its blade and onto the floor.
***
The creature had started to spin its blades in the air, one passing where the other had been a second before, flashing from left to right, over and back, twirling and spinning in a blatant demonstration of his skill over those he faced, until a scream of rage echoing from above drew its attention to its Drider master.
She fell, wrapped in her own web, to impale herself my naginata and smashing the building I stood atop into rubble.
“Mistress!” It howled, before a blur of light drew its attention back just in time to block a pair of arrows that split the air, hurtling towards it. It blocked one, then the other, just barely, but as it growled its hatred at them, it missed Lydia and Arrin.
***
Lydia kicked out, putting all the additional strength points she’d invested to become a tank to good use, buckling the Drow’s knee and sending it crashing to the floor. It lashed out, one arm bracing itself and the other sword crashing down to skitter off her hastily lifted shield in a shower of sparks that lit the cavern briefly.
As the sparks died, Arrin’s Magic Missiles lit his target back up. He’d downed two potions, both granting him an immediate jump of sixty points of mana. Combined with the boost in his regeneration, that had left him with sixty-four points. He’d forced all of it into his spell, overcharging the usual requirement of thirty mana by more than double. The resulting trio of missiles had blurred the air as he fired them straight up, only to flip over and smash down again with tremendous force.
