by Harry Nix
“Twenty fangs in a single expedition? Why don’t you join us? There’s far more money to be made helping us with these spiders. Bring me ten more and your application will almost certainly be accepted,” he said. I saw a quest flash up in my HUD, but I didn’t even want to look at it; I could leave it for tomorrow.
“I’ll get back to you,” I said and turned on my heel, walking out of there with Scarlet and Ori behind me. If I’d been more awake, I probably would’ve been scared of a crossbow bolt in the back, but he let us go and we dragged our way out of there and back to The Glove where we bought a room, baths, food and beer. It wasn’t long before I was sitting in a wooden tub with girls scrubbing the day off me. Scarlet was in another being scrubbed down too and enjoying it greatly. I looked across at her and she winked back at me.
Yes, we’d nearly died and that poison had hurt like hell, but it had been a successful day.
11
Ori poked at three piles of goo and then shrugged before throwing his stick down.
“There’s definitely no ‘respawn’,” he said doing air quotes with his fingers at the new word I’d taught him.
“Dammit,” I said.
It was the next day, near noon and we were in the forest again. Despite how astonishingly realistic the simulation was, I’d been hoping it was slightly gamey today, as in if I went back to the same area the same enemies would respawn and I could fight the sick spider first, gather up some more fangs, grind out some money. But it was not to be. The first spider was a little more than a smear on the ground. The three that had caught us under the trees were now piles of goo rapidly breaking down. I assumed the ones near the temple would be the same.
Despite the slight disappointment, I was feeling good. After blowing a bit of money last night on beer and food and baths, I’d crashed asleep with Scarlet beside me, recovering from the battle. In the morning we had headed out after another quick bowl of stew and found a generic weapon and armor seller, a crusty old dwarf whose goods could easily be described as third or fourth hand from the stains and dents in them. Lady Trang’s was too rich for my blood and so we had to make do. Ori turned down wearing armor so I only had to look after Scarlet and me. I’d bought light armor for us. Sure, in places it was little more than some padding, but at least there was leather down the arms which should hopefully stop or at least slow any spiders trying to bite us. I finally had some boots too. They were terrible but even a bad boot is better than bare feet, especially on hard rocks.
The armor had taken most of my money. With the rest, I bought some food, which were essentially rock-hard flour cakes, and also a single weak antidote, just one bottle. I don’t know the strength of the bottle that Lot shared with us yesterday but this was the best I could do with the limited funds.
Now I was flat broke once more. At least we were slightly armored up, rested and recovered and had some food in our bag. Between the three of us, I was feeling confident we’d be able to kill some more spiders, maybe get to the end of whatever this quest was. It seemed to be leading somewhere deeper into the forest and I was hoping the adaptive questing would come up with something cool.
In my bag I still had the lump of Shimmershine Ore. The dwarf had offered an insulting two coppers for it so I decided to keep it, see if I could figure out how to smelt it, get something useful. Considering I’d seen a cart of it going through the town heavily guarded, it had to be worth far more than what he was willing to offer for it. I’d kept the demoness ash too, just in case it was useful in the future.
“Let’s keep moving,” I said, and set off through the forest. We made our way quickly, not really worrying about stepping on the spiderwebs as we had yesterday. I had my staff in my hand, ready just in case, but as I suspected, there were no spiders waiting for us at the ruined temple. Although the webs were vibrating, announcing our return, there were no enemies there to greet us. The three of us quickly scouted out the clearing, checking for anything we might’ve missed yesterday, including taking another visit inside the temple, but there was nothing more to be found. The spiders here were half-rotted, slowly dissolving back to the earth.
Scarlet spotted a path out the far side of a clearing that looked promising, so we went that way, on the alert. The forest darkened as we went, the trees crowding in closer, the path growing narrower and far colder. There were no spiderwebs around though. It was just dark and damp mostly. We walked along through the forest for about an hour before a girl called out to us from somewhere in the shadows.
“Please stop there, I need to talk to you,” she said.
Scarlet summoned a Fireball in shock and I almost cast Bolt randomly into the trees. It seemed we’d been lulled into complacency over the last hour and the voice had woken us from it.
“Show yourself,” I called out.
“I cannot. Not until you promise not to attack me,” she said.
Scarlet stepped closer to me. “There are spirits in the forest. They do such things, hide, refuse to show themselves, lead you on a merry chase until you step over a cliff and fall to your death,” she whispered.
“I’m no spirit. My name is Ebony, and if you promise not to attack me I’ll come out,” she said.
Wherever she was, she must have had an extraordinary sense of hearing because Scarlet had been whispering to me. I nodded to Scarlet to extinguish the Fireball and for Ori to stand down. He had an Inkball in his hand, which dissolved back into him. I put my staff on my back, snapping it into place, and put my hands down, but still ready to cast Bolt if I needed to.
“We promise not to attack you unless you attack us,” I said.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Ebony said and then she stepped out from behind a tree.
Ebony was a spider. She was about twice as big as the largest spider we had seen yesterday, and pitch black with fine hairs all over her body. Unlike the spiders yesterday that were covered in the red mold and mud and smelt like sour yeast, Ebony looked clean and shiny. I felt Scarlet stiffen beside me at the sight of her, and I admit I even took a step back. It’s not every day you see a spider the size of a cow.
“You need to stop killing us. The ones killed yesterday were infected by the red mold and had gone crazy so we forgive you, but know that you are doing the work of evil men who have kidnapped our children and come close to wiping us out,” Ebony said.
“She could be a distraction while the rest of them surround us,” Scarlet whispered, barely audible.
I glanced around the treeline but I couldn’t see anything else. If there were black spiders like Ebony out there, I had no hope of spotting them.
“There are no others. It’s just me. I want you to agree to stop killing us and help us instead, before we are destroyed,” Ebony said.
“How are we meant to do that?” I asked. I brought up the list of quests on the side of my HUD. By delivering the fangs yesterday we’d fulfilled the requirement of the quest, but it was still open to us to gather more. Maybe Ebony could offer more than Wolfe did.
“Men raided us last night and they’re now making their way out of the forest with our stolen children in a sealed cart. I’ll take you to them. Please follow them and discover where they’re taking our children. If you can help us recover our family and keep us safe, we’ll pay you fifty gold,” Ebony said.
I’ll admit I saw dollar signs then and so did Scarlet, who turned to me with a grin. Then the quest appeared on my screen and that good feeling went away.
The Spiders of Greenwood Forest
They say that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Up to a minute ago you were the evil and now you’re pretending to be the good man? Interesting. In any case, Ebony has asked you to help the spiders. Track the evil men who’ve stolen their children, discover where they’re taking the spiders and save them, and they will shower you with gold. Because after all, that’s what you’re in this for, right?
I hit accept and swiped the text away. I couldn’t help but to think back t
o yesterday, the spider injured in the temple, the one that had spoken to me.
“We’ll help you,” I said.
“Hurry, this way,” Ebony said. She turned around and on her back I saw a red stripe curve down to the point where her body ended.
“Great, so we’re going to follow the spider into the dark,” Ori said.
We set off after Ebony, the path growing narrower and colder, and me thinking if we were ambushed now we’d be killed in a matter of moments. Soon we were at a jog trying to keep up with the spider who was speaking in a kind of hurried rush.
“They dumped chests with the red mold in it. It infects the males and they become crazed, leaving the nest, going to the outskirts to go on the attack. Then they send adventurers, murderers, to kill them, weakening us so others can steal our children. We don’t know what they want, but they won’t stop,” Ebony said, half out of breath.
If I had closed my eyes she just sounded like a girl, scared for her family, scared for her people. The fact that she was a giant spider with a red streak down her back, the size of a cow, made it a little hard to relax.
It wasn’t long before the path turned and widened. As we ran along I spotted a few other spiders off between the trees, some of them even larger than Ebony. It appeared they were the females of the tribe, and it seemed that most of the males had already been killed, infected by the red mold.
We continued running on, the forest beginning to thin until we went up a slope and we found ourselves on another cliff similar to the one we were on yesterday. Down below was a narrow track that stretched out in the distance and soon widened into a path running back to the city. There were three carts trundling down it, surrounded by armed guards. They were all sealed, like giant wood and iron lockboxes on wheels. Hanging off the sides were nets tied with ropes, and the guards marching along had crossbows and wickedly long swords across their backs.
“They’re the ones,” Ebony said, pointing a long spindly leg.
“We’ll follow them. How do we contact you?” I asked.
“Come back to here, look for the blue tree and then I’ll find you,”. Ebony said. Not far away down the slope of the hill was a tree with vivid blue bark on it.
Leaving Ebony behind at the top of the cliff, we crept down it and began shadowing the three carts, keeping well away, hidden in the forest.
“We should have asked for an advance on that gold. Where are we going to sleep tonight?” Scarlet said to me.
“We’ll figure something out,” I said.
Hours went by as we shadowed the carts, eventually coming to the edge of the forest. Thankfully there were other roads that met up with the one the men were on and other travelers, and so we were able to blend in with them, trudging along with others while keeping an eye on the three carts ahead of us.
Once they left the forest the guards relaxed, most of them putting away their crossbows and sitting on the tops of the carriages. The nearer we got to the city, the more they relaxed, joking and laughing amongst themselves. As we approached Bron, a stream of travelers split off, people on foot going one way and the carts going another. For a breathless moment I thought we’d lost the carts and we had to run ahead, get through the gates and then take a guess at where the other path went. The three of us ended up on a bridge looking down across the city and also the large open cut mine. I soon spotted the three carts. They’d blended in with the traffic from the mine, going into one of the lower entrances.
Even from a distance I could see the guards waving them in were heavily armed.
We’d gotten back reasonably quickly, the sun just beginning to set. I gripped the stone railing of the bridge and looked over the various entrances to the mine, churning through ideas.
Not all entrances were as heavily guarded as the one the carts entered through. Maybe we could slip in another one, find our way through...
“We could try that entrance there,” Scarlet said, pointing to it.
From a distance it looked like a small cave opening. There was only a single guard in front of it. He was sitting on log stool, his arms crossed and head tilted back. He looked to be asleep.
“Maybe we can steal some things once we’re inside. At least enough to sell so we can buy a room.”
Break on Through to the Other Side
Bron’s mines are a teeming warren. Find your way inside and rescue those spiders!
I hit accept, wondering why this was a new quest. I guess so long as it gave me experience, I’d take it.
Crossing the bridge and following the map that slowly filled out in front of us, we soon found ourselves walking through hastily built shanties that housed miners. Some of the streets were paved but most were dirt. Everything looked thrown together and flimsy. Some of the boards on the houses were still leaking sap.
It was rough and ready but not too bad. The homes were mostly families and there were kids playing the street. Between some of the houses were clotheslines, shirts and pants moving with the gentle breeze.
“That smells so good, whatever it is,” Scarlet said, sniffing as we passed a house with open windows. Someone inside was cooking a meal that smelt like Butter Chicken and Rogan Josh had met up and made a delicious baby.
We passed it by, my stomach growling. As we went, a bunch of orc kids who were as big as me watched us, stopping their game that involved throwing a stick at each other.
I didn’t see any mismatched eyes amongst them. Maybe the two orcs stuck in one body didn’t happen to kids?
Soon we left the houses and drew nearer the mine. We moved off the main roads and crept through alleyways, staying to the lengthening shadows. Although there were still people about, they were mostly miners now and we didn’t really fit in.
Eventually, we were across the road from the guard who indeed was asleep, and snoring loudly. We were hidden in the shadows beside some boxes, me watching to see if anyone else came, when a voice spoke up out of nowhere.
“The question is, do you kill the guard, or just try to sneak by him?”
The three of us whirled around, but there was no one there.
“The hells...” I muttered. As I stood there, clenching my staff and looking around, a shape appeared beside one of the boxes almost as though it was emerging from it. It was a girl, maybe four feet tall, dressed in shades of brown and green. She was wearing a hooded cloak, and when she pulled the hood back, I saw her ears were pointed. An elf? She had blue eyes and pale skin, although there was a greenish tint to it. I wasn’t sure whether it was makeup to help her hide or just the way she naturally looked.
“You’re tracking the spiders, aren’t you? And so, I repeat my question: do we kill the guard, or sneak by him? How good are you at sneaking?” she said.
“How do you know we’re here for the spiders?” I said.
“I’ve been tracking you since the Greenwood Forest. You talked with Ebony, and she only wants one thing: to find all the children.”
“What’s your name?” Scarlet asked. She had the Echo Knife in one hand but was holding it loosely, as though she didn’t consider the elf a threat.
“Isabel. I’m here because they took my lover, Armando. In there somewhere,” she said. Although she had seemed calm, as she spoke about Armando, her expression grew dark, and I saw she was clutching a knife in her hand, the blade of which was as brown as the earth. Maybe it’s because I had been shocked by her stealthing so close to us without us being aware that I hadn’t realized what she’d said, but eventually it sank in.
“Wait, your lover?”
Isabel turned to me.
“Oh, you’re one of those, are you? Humans are only with humans? Dwarves with dwarves, spiders with spiders? Stop living in the Dark Ages.”
“Okay, sorry. It was just unexpected. When did they take him?”
Isabel gave me a hard stare.
“Her. They took her a week ago. I think it was in the warehouses down by the docks where they took her, and then smuggled through the city.”
&nb
sp; Scarlet was staring at me as though I was some homophobe, and even Ori had his arms crossed, glaring at me.
“Sorry, her. Armando, her, your lover. Yes. We are trying to track the spiders. Do you want to join us?” I said, trying to salvage the situation.
“Perhaps. You haven’t given me your answer yet. Do you slit his throat, or sneak on by?”
I glanced across at the guard. He was snoring loud enough to wake the dead. During the time we’d been here, we hadn’t seen anyone else, so although we could kill him and it would probably be undiscovered for a little while, eventually someone would come by.
“We sneak past, see what we can find, and sneak out, leaving them unawares,” I said.
“Or you slit his throat, spill his blood, and stop his heart as a lesson to anyone else who deals with the slavers and the murderers. Send a message all the way up the chain to Rax,” she said. With that, she pointed a finger at the castle in the distance on top of the cliffs. In the fading light, the gold in the columns was glowing.
“And Rax is...” I asked.
“He owns the mine, which means whatever is going on there, he’s behind it.”
“Either of you heard of Rax?” I asked Scarlet and Ori.
Both of them just shook their heads. I looked back at the guard and the cave entrance behind him, and then followed it up all the way to the castle in the distance. Was this a major quest? Had Lucy found some way to lead me from hunting for spider fangs in the forest to the major story? I turned back to speak to Isabel, but she was gone.
“Isabel, are you here?” I asked.
There was no answer.
“I think she’s over there. I saw a patch of shadow move,” Scarlet said, pointing the Echo Knife at the snoring guard.
I looked into the shadows behind him, focusing as hard as I could, and maybe I saw a glimmer, perhaps a patch that moved, but I couldn’t be sure. Not wanting to wait to see whether she’d decide to slit the guard’s throat, I waved for Scarlet and Ori to follow me, and we crept through the shadows, crossing the street and making our way closer to the snoring guard.
