Rise of the Grandmaster

by Bradford Bates

  He probably should have been more worried about the next boss in the dungeon, but the team had proven they could adapt and work well with each other. All Tim could do now was trust that they’d learned enough to win. Being killed by the boss or getting murdered for not defeating it ended up with the same result.

  They’d all be dead.

  Or at the very least, he’d be dead.

  Tim dunked his head in the water and pushed his long hair back when he came up. Why was he thinking about dying when all they’d done was kick ass? Sure, the goddess had helped them over their first hurdle, but the team had done the rest on their own. If anything, he should feel excited about tomorrow.

  Tomorrow was the day everything changed and their future began.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  “I’m never going to get used to that feeling.” Cassie bent over, clutching her stomach.

  “It’s not that bad,” Tim said, stepping out of the vortex.

  “Kind of tickles,” Gaston sniggered as he stepped into the antechamber.

  “Whatever,” Cassie growled. “Let’s get moving.”

  Despite yesterday’s close calls, Tim was feeling good about today. All of them had slightly better gear than the day before, and they were coming together as a team. It didn’t matter if you had the best players in the world. If they couldn’t work together, you were destined to fail.

  Stepping forward, Tim placed the key in the lock and pushed open the doors to the next phase of the dungeon. He took one look inside of the next room and started to back away.

  “Spiders. Why is it always fucking spiders?”

  He’d played enough games as a kid to know that in every version of every fantasy game, there was always a level or a dungeon full of spiders. The last thing he wanted to see in The Etheric Coast was a huge, mutated spider. It was one thing to see the monstrosities on the screen, but quite another to face them in real life.

  Shit, every time he watched Arachnophobia, it gave him chills, and ninety-nine percent of those were just little spiders. Even the biggest one he wouldn’t be afraid of now, not with this team, but in games, the biggest ones might be four or five feet tall. More like Eight-Legged Freaks than anything resembling a real spider.

  “Don’t tell me our leader is afraid of a few webs.” Cassie poked him with a finger.

  Tim jumped. “It’s not the webs that concern me. It’s what put them there.”

  Peering into the chamber, Gaston frowned. “He’s right. This is going to suck.” He held up two fingers like they were fangs and made a plunging motion.

  Gaston’s imagery didn’t help calm Tim down. He’d almost been eaten alive, but being paralyzed in a web until the spider’s poison liquefied your insides so it could suck them out was quite another.

  “Why are men such babies when it comes to spiders? They aren’t that scary.” ShadowLily looked into the room with a smile. “How bad can it be?”

  Tim pointed toward the head of a dire wolf poking through some webbing. “You’ll have to tell me when we run into the spider big enough to kill that thing.”

  “We don’t know it was just one,” Cassie chided.

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Tim whined as he looked into the room for any sign of one of the spiders.

  “Time to grow a pair.” Cassie grinned at him as she stepped into the hallway.

  “Just try not to touch the webs, they act like sonar for these things.” Tim kept his eyes on the ceiling as they moved further along. “And don’t forget to look up.”

  Cassie froze in the middle of the wide hallway. She used her staff to point out the black body against the white webbing. The spider didn’t look like much now, but its legs were curled in so you couldn’t get a real feel for the size from this far away.

  Tim looked at the bloated black body, and the first thought to run through his head was, It’s a fucking giant black widow. Venomous, used webbing to trap prey, and scarily fast for a spider. He hated the fucking things. From where he was standing, Tim guessed the center of its body had to be at least two feet around. That meant with its legs extended, the thing was easily going to be bigger than a German Shepherd.

  “Why couldn’t it be fucking zombies,” Tim muttered to himself. “Everyone loves killing zombies.”

  Cassie pulled the hook and chain from her belt, and Tim watched in horror as she sent it sailing toward the spider. The hook slammed into the back of the spider, and it screeched as it dropped to the ground. Cassie pulled the hook back and dropped into a fighter's crouch.

  The spider moved from side to side, keeping what felt like a hundred eyes on them. Then it rushed straight at Cassie with its pincers flexing and poison dripping from its fangs. When it was ten feet away, it leapt onto the wall and kept running. From five feet away, it sprang toward her, legs extended far enough to the sides that there was no escape.

  Tim held his breath as Cassie’s staff came up. He hoped it would be enough. He wasn’t sure how well his cleanse spell worked on spider venom, but he was sure he’d find out soon.

  Cassie’s staff slammed into the fat center of the spider, and it damn near burst as she flung it into the wall. Its eight legs thrashed as it tried to get back up, but a throwing knife slammed into the red mark on its belly, ending the spider’s squeals of pain.

  “See? They aren’t so bad.” Cassie looked back at Tim with a haughty “I told you so” expression.

  Tim pointed into the corridor behind her and the four spiders that were eyeing them now. “You were saying?”

  “Don’t be such a drama llama.” ShadowLily threw one of her daggers, taking out a spider.

  A second later, one of Gaston’s daggers downed another one.

  Cassie charged forward to meet the remaining two, but one got around her. The spider leapt for the ceiling and scuttled toward Tim. Throwing knives sparked off the stone ceiling as the spider ran past ShadowLily and Gaston. Tim felt pressure in his chest as he started to panic. One of his nightmares had finally come true.

  He cast flameburst as the spider jumped toward him and the blackened corpse slammed into his chest, sending him to the ground. He felt icy pain running up his left arm and looked down to find one of the spider's fangs buried in his forearm. He pulled the fang free and began casting cleanse.

  “At least I get to test it on myself first,” he mumbled as he cast the spell again. As he cast cleanse a third time, the spider venom was wearing off.

  Tim stood back up and looked at the group. “Not quite as effective as I’d hoped.”

  “Effective enough to keep you alive.” ShadowLily gave him a quick kiss. “Let’s keep going.”

  Cassie took charge as they continued moving down the hallway. They faced two more groups of spiders before reaching the final door. Cassie stood at the door and scraped away the webbing so she could get a better looked at the name carved there. The webbing stuck to her hand, and she pulled it away in disgust.

  Tim stepped forward. “Let me.” His flameburst spell might not be the most effective thing in the world, but it would easily burn away the webbing. The webs caught fire and shriveled, leaving Tim staring at the name on the door. He stepped back so everyone could see who they would be facing.

  The Cursed.

  “Well, that’s not ominous or anything.” It also didn’t give them a lot of information. The Cursed could literally be anything.

  He frowned at the door, trying to guess at what might be waiting for them inside. There was no way to know for sure, but it would have something to do with spiders. Maybe it would be a giant fucker like when Harry Potter followed the spiders. Tim took two things away from that scene: never trust Hagrid’s sense when it comes to monsters, and never, ever fucking follow the spiders.

  Only this time, they didn’t have a choice.

  He took one last look at his group and shoved the door open.

  The room in front of them was a giant circular cavern. Spider webs clung to the ceiling, walls, and even the floor in
spots. Besides the webbing, there was only a giant stone column that extended from the floor all the way to the ceiling. His first thought was it might be something to hide behind if spiders tried to slow them down with webbing. There wasn’t any way for him to plan their attacks when they didn’t even know what the boss looked like. Tim glanced at Cassie and nodded. “Lead the way.”

  Cassie tapped her bo staff on the ground and took her first step into the room. “Don’t fail me now.”

  The thief and the assassin dropped into stealth. Tim proceeded slowly, making sure to give Cassie some space. The giant doors closed behind him, and a sense of dread at the incoming fight settled over him. He took a few deep breaths and reminded himself of how successful they’d been up to this point.

  If anyone could pull this off, it would be them.

  A few stray stones fell from the ceiling, and Tim looked up as the biggest spider he’d ever seen dropped to the floor. But it wasn’t just a spider. Sure, the thing had spider legs and a spider body, but its top half was the torso of a woman. The damn thing was just like a centaur, but with a spider’s body instead of a horse’s.

  “And I thought I had nightmares before,” Tim whispered as he watched the Cursed move to the center of the room.

  There was no way to deny that if the rest of her had been legs instead of a spider, the elf torso attached to the giant spider body would have been hot. She had long black hair, and her skin almost had a purple tone to it. The chainmail armor the Cursed had on told you she meant business, but so did the massive two-handed sword strapped to her back.

  The Cursed looked at them with a cruel sneer on her face. “It’s not often delicious morsels walk so willingly into my lair.” She pulled the sword free, rearing up on her four back legs. “My spiderlings will be very happy when they feast upon your corpses.”

  Cassie laughed. “If they were back that way, they won’t be eating again.”

  “Oh, there are more,” the Cursed chided. “There are always more.”

  “Right now, I see only one ugly bitch, so I’m going to start there.” Cassie ran forward, looking woefully small against the six-foot-tall spider legs of the Cursed.

  Cassie’s first attack bounced harmlessly off one of the black legs. Her second and third attempts were no more effective. The Cursed’s giant two-handed sword missed her by a hair’s breadth as she rolled away. Standing, Cassie turned just in time to be toppled by one of the other legs.

  The Cursed cried out in delight as she rushed forward to stomp Cassie to death.

  Tim cast healing orb in her direction, but no amount of healing would help if Cassie was split in two by that giant fucking sword. He watched nervously as Cassie rolled around, dodging three strikes at once. The fourth leg pierced her stomach, and the sword rose into the air as Tim bit his lip.

  This was it. With Cassie down, they were totally fucked.

  The sword started to descend and Gaston appeared, slashing at one of the Cursed’s hind legs. The leg tumbled away, twitching as it hit the ground.

  Moving so fast it was almost a blur, the Cursed pirouetted on its remaining legs, bringing her massive blade around in an arc to cut Gaston in half. He saw the blade and managed to bring his daggers together to block the strike, but the force of the blow sent him flying across the room and into the wall, where he fell limp.

  Tim started casting healing orb like it was going out of style. Cassie got the first one and Gaston the second. The Cursed ignored the assassin and rushed toward the downed tank. Tim started running to intercept the spider, but ShadowLily got there first.

  His girl dropped out of stealth and tore a hole in the Cursed’s bulbous body. She danced away from the legs and disappeared again, this time taking a piece out of one of the boss’ front legs.

  The Cursed yelled in a language Tim didn’t understand and started climbing the walls. Soon she disappeared in the webbing covering the room. Smaller spiders descended from the ceiling, and a quick count revealed there were at least five of them.

  “Adds!” Tim cried out for everything he was worth, just like he had in the days he’d spent behind the monitor in his room.

  He cast another healing orb at Gaston and saw him twitch awake. Cassie was back on her feet and running in their direction. Tim looked at the team to make sure they were topped off and prepared himself to deal with at least one of the spiders.

  “Cassie, let’s start working our way back to the pillar.”

  “Are you serious?” she snarled as she stepped up to meet the charging spiderlings.

  “It wouldn’t be here if we weren’t going to need it.” Tim pulled Gaston to his feet.

  Cassie took out the first spider with her bo staff. “Let’s go.” She charged into the spiders, creating room for the rest of them to get behind her. Now they could back toward the pillar while they dealt with the rest of the adds.

  Gaston picked two off with throwing knives, and ShadowLily took out another with a cast of her own. There was only one left, but where the fuck was it?

  Tim readied flameburst before he even looked up. The flames shot from his hands as the spider crashed into him. He pushed the charred corpse to the side, careful not to get bitten again. Standing up, he brushed burnt bits of spider off his robes.

  Worst barbeque ever.

  The group continued trudging toward the pillar as they worriedly scanned the room for more spiders, but they saw no additional spiderlings. They reached the stone column just as the Cursed exploded from the webbing on the ground.

  “Take cover!” Tim shouted and dove behind the pillar of rock.

  Gaston and ShadowLily appeared next to him, but Cassie didn’t make it. Tim poked his head around to see their tank getting covered in webbing. If they hadn’t come back to the pillar, it would have been all of them trapped there, and this mad quest of theirs would have been over.

  Still, they wouldn’t be able to win this fight without a tank. Cassie was going to hate him, but he had to make a move now, or all of them might be joining her sooner rather than later. Tim watched until the Cursed stopped hurling webs at the tank and ran to Free Cassie.

  There was only one quick and dirty way to do it.

  Flameburst ripped through the webs like he’d splashed gasoline on a fire. Before the spell stopped, he was casting healing orb at her.

  She emerged from the smoking remnants with her clothing only slightly singed. “Let’s not do that again.”

  “Then hurry up and kill this bitch.” Tim waved her away like an aristocrat would one of his servants.

  ShadowLily whispered in his ear, “You’re going to pay for that later.”

  “Only if we live.” Tim cast another healing orb at Cassie as she charged at the Cursed.

  Knowing she couldn’t damage the boss with her staff, Cassie employed a defensive tactic. She kept the legs and sword as busy as she could. Tim could tell the Cursed was starting to get frustrated, but Cassie just kept dodging and smacking her as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  Gaston appeared under the spider’s belly and slashed it open. He tried to dance out of the way, but one of the legs pierced his arm. The Cursed reared back to finish him off, but ShadowLily ran up her back and sank her daggers deep into the human torso. Gaston rolled free of the legs as they started to close in on themselves.

  The Cursed was dead.

  FUCK, YEAH!

  Tim ran forward, healing Gaston as he did. The hole in his arm started to close as Tim pumped more power into the skill. By the time he reached the assassin, he was as good as new.

  “We did it.” Gaston grabbed Tim by the shoulders and shook him like a rag doll. “We fucking did it!”

  Tim extracted himself from Gaston’s grip and smiled. “Was there any doubt!” Tim roared back as something slammed into him, sending him crashing to the ground.

  ShadowLily rolled on top of him. “You did it.” She kissed him on the lips.

  “Get a room already,” Cassie said as she walked past them to lay her
hand on the Cursed.

  “This is a room, although it is rather large. And I’m not sure if I’m into people watching or not,” Tim snarked.

  “Gross,” Cassie spat as she stood up with the key in her hand. “Why don’t you try using this so the rest of us can keep our breakfasts down?”

  Tim pulled ShadowLily into a deep kiss before rolling back to his feet. He bent over to help her up and turned toward Cassie. After three quick steps, he plucked the key from her hand. “Don’t mind if I do.”

  At the final door of the dungeon, he slipped the key into the lock. Tim paused for a moment, letting the feeling wash over him. He wasn’t going to die, and his plans for the slums were about to come to fruition. Everything he’d been working so hard for was just in his grasp.

  The key clicked in the lock, and the doors swung open. Sitting inside of the room was a chest more elaborate than any they had encountered so far. Tim glanced at the group. “Anyone want the honor?”

  Gaston grinned. “As long as we get Malvonis the dungeon heart, I don’t care who goes first.

  “Just open it already.” Cassie beamed at him. “You deserve it.”

  “We all deserve it. I’m so impressed right now.” Tim couldn’t stop grinning as he looked at his team.

  “Enough with the speeches. I want to see the loot,” Cassie clamored from behind him.

  Tim placed his hand on the chest and felt his smile growing. This was the best reward so far, mostly because he didn’t have a set of gloves yet. The gloves with +2 wisdom went into his inventory without a second thought. Reaching back into the chest, he also took the dungeon heart for Malvonis. The last thing he got access to in the chest was a market kiosk.

  Not only could Ernie reopen the inn, but people could list items for sale and buy them just like they were at the market. They’d get a small cut of every transaction. This one item could be worth a fortune. It was better than all the gold in the world as far as Tim was concerned. It was like compound interest, the gift that kept on giving.