The other spiders rushed to bring him down and his health bar started to go down under their multiple attacks.
Aaheli shouldered her shortbow and drew her blade. She surged forward to protect Henk until he could recover, but a group of spiders scuttled forward to block her, cutting her off from Henk’s position. Kip fired off a couple more blasts, but his magic levels were now dangerously low and he needed to drink a mana restore potion before he could carry on with his attack.
“Damn it!” snarled Brier. He hefted his battle-axe and bolted across the plateau to come to the other three Crew members’ aid.
“Wait!” yelled Sonia. “We have to stay back!”
“You stay back,” Brier replied. “Keep Argo out of the way!”
With that, he let out a guttural battle cry and brought his axe sweeping down on the nearest spider. He then slashed a path to Henk’s position, sending crystal body parts everywhere.
“We can’t just stay here,” Argo said anxiously. “We have to help them.”
“If you go down, all of this will be for nothing,” Sonia reminded him. She was hurling more shurikens at the nearest monsters. “They’re holding their own.”
Argo bit his lip, knowing she was right but still yearning to do his bit to help. Though the Lute of Decimar was capable of sonic attacks that could hurl the spiders wide distances when played correctly, the attack used up a large portion of its power bar which would take twenty four hours to replenish. They needed the lute’s other unique ability to deactivate the defense ward, which meant keeping it at full power; so using it to help in this fight had to be ruled out.
He was fairly decent with swordplay which he’d got up to about 20, but his health was only at 30 and multiple attacks at the same time could overwhelm him in minutes. If he died mid-quest, he would respawn at the manor house and not be allowed to join the others until they had either succeeded or been defeated. Without the lute, defeat seemed to be the most likely outcome. So, he stayed put and hoped for the best.
Besides, it was beginning to look like the tide of battle was turning in their favor. Brier had bought Henk enough time to recover from the spider bite and he was now fighting fit again. Aaheli supported with a constant barrage of arrows focusing on the left flank of the spider swarm, making sure to stay far away enough to avoid being overwhelmed. Kip sheltered behind her as he drank down a mana potion.
Aaheli drew too much threat to herself, however. She pulled off far more spiders than she could handle alone, especially since Kip needed to wait a few seconds to recover enough mana for a few more energy bolts.
Sonia the Rogue threw a couple more shurikens to support Aaheli and Kip, but it just didn’t kill them fast enough. She eased off the throwing stars, not wanting to use up all of her supply. She instead switched to her dagger, maneuvered behind the distracted spiders, then used Backstab to quickly dispatch one of the stragglers.
Sonya uses Backstab! The attack strikes a weak point, dealing 80 critical damage!
Crystalline Spider dies! 800% OVERKILL!!!
The resulting critical strike dealt severe damage—the dagger’s regular 4 damage boosted 10 times from the skill, coupled with another 2 times modifier for striking a vital organ.
80 damage all-in-all—8 times the measly 10 HP of her hapless victim.
The extreme damage of Backstab, however, also had the nasty side-effect of drawing ludicrous amounts of threat toward the Rogue. Sensing the sudden death of their comrade, six spiders broke away from the main fight and scuttled towards her. Sonia activated Finesse, increasing her evasion rate and lowering her threat levels.
The problem with Finesse, however, was that the Rogue using it lowered their threat levels while focusing entirely on avoiding attacks. No attacks, no counterthrusts, just pure evasion. She wouldn’t hold threat for long, which in turn meant monsters tended to look elsewhere for targets. She managed to hold the attention of five spiders that continued to circle around her, springing up to try and bite her with their paralyzing fangs.
She couldn’t hold the attention of the sixth, which then rushed towards Argo.
Panic flared in Argo’s chest and he brought up his short sword to defend himself. One of the spiders made a running jump at him, and he lashed out madly, striking it on the head and its forelegs.
Fortunately for him, his sword was a high-quality, freshly-sharpened Steel Sword. At 150% durability, the blade’s default 4 damage was boosted up to 6—dealing 50% more damage than it normally could. This boost was precisely the reason why Henk made sure that everyone paid the blacksmith at the local village to sharpen their weapons and reinforce their armor before embarking on this quest.
6 damage also meant that it would only take Argo two strokes to empty the Crystalline Spider’s 10 HP… if only he could connect properly.
Crystalline Spider leaps! It misses, dealing 0 damage.
Slash! Argo misses his attack, dealing 0 damage.
Slash! Argo misses his attack, dealing 0 damage.
Stab! Argo misses his attack, dealing 0 damage.
Crystalline Spider bites with its fangs! It misses, dealing 0 damage.
Slash! Argo misses his attack, dealing 0 damage.
Bash! Argo connects with the flat of his blade, dealing 3 damage!
Bash! Argo misses his attack, dealing 0 damage.
Crystalline Spider lashes out with its claws! It deals 3 damage.
Bash! Argo connects with the flat of his blade, dealing 3 damage!
Crystalline Spider lashes out with its claws! It misses, dealing 0 damage
Bash! Argo misses his attack, dealing 0 damage.
Stab! The attack glances, dealing 3 damage!
Slash! The attack glances, dealing 3 damage!
Crystalline Spider dies! Argo gains 10 XP!
Argo panted in frustration, more out of panic than actual fatigue. Despite his earlier pleas to help his comrades, he just couldn’t stay focused when some ugly, nasty thing wanted to kill him. Astraverse or not, his fight-or-flight instincts leaned far too heavily on the ‘flight’ side for his comfort.
Killing the one Crystalline Spider may have been a great accomplishment by his standards. The only problem was that doing so also raised his threat levels, drawing attention to himself. Not a good thing, especially with Sonya dodging this way and that, losing threat because of her Finesse buff.
One of the spiders peeled away from Sonya, made its way toward him. He steeled himself for the encounter, confident in the knowledge that he could take down these low-level monsters if he just put his mind to it.
Slash! Argo misses his attack, dealing 0 damage.
Stab! Argo misses his attack, dealing 0 damage.
Crystalline Spider lashes out with its claws, dealing 3 damage.
Slash! The attack lands true, dealing 6 damage! Crystalline Spider is crippled!
This last attack landed cleanly, slicing two of the monster’s eight legs clean off and crippling the little thing. It stumbled forward, landing heavily on the ground and leaving its soft head vulnerable to attack.
Stab! The attack strikes a weak point, dealing 12 critical damage!
Crystalline Spider dies! Argo gains 10 XP!
Points danced like fireflies around its head as the monster’s remaining health bar shot down in a heartbeat. Argo exulted in the experience he absorbed, eager to hit the next level and climb one step closer to his higher-level party mates.
The problem with enthusiastically thrusting a blade downwards, however, is the tendency to stab too strongly. The result: Argo got his Steel Short Sword stuck in the floor. He was too busy grunting and pulling at the hilt with his puny strength to notice a third spider creeping up behind him—drawn by the threat of a second dead spider.
Crystalline Spider leaps! Its fangs connect, dealing 1 damage!
Argo is paralyzed for 30 seconds!
A burning pain flared through his left arm where the spider managed to bite him. Its fangs stuck true, injected their venom, and froze him in place.
Crystalline Spider lashes out with its claws, dealing 3 damage.
He wanted to gasp, but his body just wouldn’t let him. He wanted more air, but his lungs just wouldn’t work as he wanted them to.
Crystalline Spider lashes out with its claws, dealing 3 damage.
He wanted to scream, but his lips wouldn’t budge.
Crystalline Spider lashes out with its claws, dealing 3 damage.
He began choking then, panicking as his locked body refused to listen to him. He already took 19 points of damage, and was down to just 11 points of health. Four more attacks would kill him, cause him to respawn back in town—along with the Lute of Decimar vital for finishing this quest.
“Argo!” Brier yelled, spotting the attack. “Argo! I’m coming!”
The Mercenary gnoll brought his battle-axe down in a savage chopping motion, decapitating one spider and then swinging it round to shatter the abdomen of another, before he ploughed through the remaining spiders to get to the Bard.
Argo spotted the gnoll, but couldn’t do anything about it.
Crystalline Spider lashes out with its claws, dealing 3 damage.
8 health now, just three more attacks and he would die. He couldn’t even gulp down a health potion, which would easily prevent his looming demise.
His logical mind knew that he was breathing just fine inside his Astral-bubble. His lizard brain, however, just kept screaming at how his lungs weren’t moving as fast as he needed them to.
Grimly, he realized the quest was over barely before it had begun, but he just couldn’t bring himself to give up. He might have let the rest of the Manticore Crew down, but he was not going to make it easy for the spiders by just giving up here and now.
Crystalline Spider’s Paralyzing Bite wears off!
Argo scrambled the moment he regained control over himself. His Steel Short Sword may be stuck to the floor, but he still had a few tricks up his sleeve.
Kick! The attack connects with the Crystalline Spider, dealing 1 stamina damage and knocking it back!
It was a knee-jerk instinct, borne completely out of despair. It would never match a Monk’s well-honed strike that pierces through armor and attacks the spirit. It wasn’t even up to a Brawler’s kick, which would send a target flying and eat up a ton of stamina in the process.
It was, however, enough to put some space between him and his tormentor.
Argo ran away with every ounce of strength he could, screaming all the way. Running is good; it puts distance between you and the thing that wants to kill you. Running while screaming tends to draw attention to you—which is exactly what happened with the three Crystalline Spiders that were getting sick of missing all their attacks on Sonia.
His eyes locked onto the gyrocopter and he wondered if he could get to it, get inside and seal the doors shut. It would provide protection from the spiders until the others could reach him and bail him out. By now, his legs were screaming with pain and he was out of breath. He would never have enough stamina left to be able to get to the flying craft. It was a lost cause.
A red glow on the ground caught his eye just then. The magical trap Kip had detected earlier was still visible after it had been stripped of its camouflage enchantment by the Mage’s scan of the area. It was still some ways away, but it was closer than the gyrocopter. A new plan bloomed in his frantic mind.
Running for all he was worth, he headed directly for the Fire Jet trap. The four pursuing spiders, oblivious to the danger, kept coming after him. He drove headlong for the magical trap and just before he set foot on it, narrowly avoiding the trigger plate, he hurled himself to the side. The first two spiders on his heels scuttled straight across the pressure-sensitive plate, causing a column of fire to shoot out of the ground and instantly incinerate them.
Crystalline Spider is caught in Fire Jet trap! It dies instantly!
Crystalline Spider is caught in Fire Jet trap! It dies instantly!
Crystalline Spider is caught in the edges of the Fire Jet trap! It is set on fire, taking 5 fire damage until the flames burn out!
Crystalline Spider is caught in the edges of the Fire Jet trap! It is set on fire, taking 5 fire damage until the flames burn out!
As Argo looked up from where he had fallen, he was relieved to find that the remaining two spiders had also been caught in the edges of the flaming jets. The monsters squirmed and screeched as flames devoured their precious health points. Two seconds later, they were as dead as the two other Crystalline Spiders that caught the full brunt of the Fire Jet trap.
Argo clambered to his feet to get as far away from them as possible, wincing at the pain from the scrapes he’d received to his knees and elbows. He was so eager to just get away that he didn’t even bother absorbing their XP for himself.
To Argos’ mild irritation, the gnoll Mercenary also absorbed the experience orbs that the four monsters dropped when they died. He should have stopped to grab that XP for himself, especially since he lured those spiders into the trap—not Brier. He called up his stat sheet, quickly checked his experience bar.
20/500 XP needed to reach Level 3 Bard
Argo clicked his tongue at Brier’s greed; 40 XP from four Crystalline Spiders would have helped a low-level Bard like him progress much faster than the Level 5 Mercenary.
“You okay, Argo?” Brier asked as he came over to him.
Argo nodded, setting aside his bitterness for the moment. “Yeah. That was a close one though.”
The battle was over. The rest of the Manticore Crew had killed the remaining spiders, sucked up their XP, and were now recovering. Sonia trotted over to him, carrying his sword. “Here,” she said. “You dropped this.”
Argo grabbed the Steel Short Sword with a thank you. He studied it for a moment, noticing the durability had gone down from 150/100 to 132/100—with most of the damage coming from his heavy-handed downward stab. He sighed, accepting the hit to durability, and sheathed his blade. He took out a health potion from his ghost pack, gulped it down, and watched his health points tick steadily up back to 30.
It also gave him a rejuvenating boost that made him feel a whole lot better—like the buzz of an energy drink.
“Nice job leading them over the trap,” Sonia said, nodding approvingly at the twisted bodies of the spiders. “That was smart.”
“Thanks,” mumbled Argo, unsure what else to say. “It was all I could think of doing. I thought I was a goner back there.”
“If you’d been looking where you were going and hadn’t stepped on that plate, we wouldn’t have had to go through all that,” Kip said in an admonishing tone. “That was real clumsy, Arg, even for you.”
“Says the guy who triggered the first trap of the quest,” Aaheli said, nudging him in the ribs. “Don’t think we forgot, and in accordance with Manticore Crew law, you have to buy the first round of drinks when we get back to the Gargoyle Inn.”
Kip made a face. He hated having to part with his sovereigns for unnecessary expenses, and he considered anything beyond purchasing gear that increased his own magical powers as unnecessary. “Whatever. I’m just saying we got to be careful. Extra careful.”
“Isn’t that what you keep telling your girlfriend whenever you stay over at her parents’ house?” chuckled Brier.
Sonia and Aaheli laughed and Kip’s scowl deepened. Argo felt himself start to blush.
“It was a tough break,” Henk said, kicking one of the dead spiders with his foot. “There’s going to be a lot more surprises when we get into the cave. Besides, this was good practice and we earned ourselves some experience, so it didn’t turn out so bad. Still, Kip does have a point; we got to be super cautious from now on. Got it?”
&nbs
p; “We got it,” the rest of the Crew repeated. And after they had replenished their health and stamina levels, the group started on their journey again to the mouth of the cavern.
They encountered no more traps, or at least nobody triggered any more, and they reached the cavern in one piece. Argo glanced up at the forbidding entrance and read the legend that had appeared above it in gold lettering:
Spy: Reborn Page 4