by Deck Davis
Faei was on her feet now. One spider lay dead with a bolt wedged through one eye and all the way through its head. The other creature scuttled toward Faei.
Jake prepared to charge at it, but stopped when an arrow sailed through the air and straight through the throat of the spider. It crashed to the floor, each of its legs splaying out in different directions and then curling up toward its body.
All the breaths in the world couldn’t seem to satisfy his need for air. He breathed deeply in through his mouth and out again, but it wasn’t enough. His nose stung so badly it blinded him. Hot tears blurred his vision.
Level up to level 8!
-HP increased to 313
-Stamina inc to 331
Hitpoints and stamina increases were great, but with half his nose missing, he found it hard to rejoice in anything. He dismissed the stat updates and rejoined his friends.
“You okay?” asked Faei.
He couldn’t answer yet. Instead he took a vial out of his pocked and uncorked it. He knew by smell that he’d chosen correctly. He tipped some of the sweet-smelling liquid onto his fingers and carefully rubbed his nose wound. Then, he drank the rest back.
Soon, the pain began to abate. The burning became a sting, which was enough for him to stomach. He flopped onto his back and stared up at the trees twisting up into the air and forming a leafy canopy. If only the job was done, he could quite happily shut his eyes and sleep through the next year.
Faei’s head appeared above his. At this angle, he could see up her nostrils. She screwed up her face.
“You weren’t a looker to begin with,” she said, “But now you’re really in trouble.”
He sat up. Dark thoughts stabbed at him. He was disfigured. The damn spider had sculpted his face. He brought his dagger in front of him and angled it to try and see his reflection, but the metal was too stained with blood.
There wasn’t time for this now. He would brood on his nose later. He’d find a mirror and survey the damage. Now, he couldn’t afford to even think about it.
Faei stuck her hand out. He grabbed it, and she hauled him to his feet.
“Solly,” said Jake, looking at the mage. “Thanks for the help back there.”
Solly didn’t move. He held his hand against his stomach and groaned. Jake went over to him and saw his face was pure white, though the veins in his neck stuck out against his skin.
Jake crouched down. “What’s going on, Solly?”
“It hurts like hell,” said the mage.
Solly lifted his shirt to show Jake his waist. He had two red welts just below his nipple, where the spider had bitten him. All around the bites, his skin had turned oil-black.
“His nipple’s been poisoned,” said Faei. She ran her hand through her hair and paced. “Nipple poisoning. Damn it. Do you have any antidote?”
“Nothing,” answered Jake.
“Can you brew one?”
“I don’t know the ingredients. And we don’t have time to experiment. Even if we did, I don’t have the herb lore book with me, so I wouldn’t know where to start looking.”
“Bugger,” said Faei. She paced faster now. “You’re missing half your face, and Solly’s been punctured like an old pigskin. Have you got any more healing potions? My arm’s killing.”
He gave her one. “Only drink half. We’re down to two.”
“Thanks.”
As Faei drank the potion, Jake thought about what to do. Solly would die without an antidote to the spider venom, that was for sure. And what about Jake? Was he poisoned from the nose bite? No, he couldn’t be. He’d have gotten a debuff message, or something.
Even so, they needed an antidote. Since Jake couldn’t brew one without either knowing the ingredients or having a poison antidote potion to hand to gauge, he was screwed.
They had to go into the well. That was the size of it. Going back into Widow Leaf labyrinth would kill them. Back wasn’t an option; the only way was down.
“He’ll live,” said Faei, leaving Solly. “For now, at least. How did we get down the well?”
“I might be able to brew something that’ll help, but I need a fire. Could you get some kindling? I need water, too. There must be a stream somewhere around here.”
“If only there was well nearby, and if only some orb-man hadn’t sucked it dry…”
They collected small sticks and twigs to use as kindling for a fire, as well as large branches to keep it going. Then, while Faei searched for water, Jake used his butchery skill on one of the dead spiders. After overcoming his revulsion at how bristly its legs were, he dragged it into the clearing near the well.
He didn’t have long; there was no telling when another spider might scurry along. Using his steady hand skill, and holding his breath like a military sniper, he cut into the spider’s skin.
He completed his grim autopsy with efficiency, staying away from the creature’s organs since one of them was bound to be a venom sack. Instead, he managed to slice away the skin on its side and then nick an artery. He put an empty healing potion vial under to catch the dripping blood.
Faei came back and built a fire, and Jake boiled his potion. When he was done, he held it up to the light.
“What is it?” asked Faei.
“Spider mutoction. I’m hoping it’ll help us climb down the well.”
“Judging by how well your bird mutoction went, I guess I better prepare to start shooting cobwebs out of my arse.”
Jake gave Solly a quarter of one of their healing potions and helped him to his feet.
“Thank you,” groaned the mage. “I’m quite alright. I’ve never felt better.”
“If this is ‘never feeling better’, I’d hate to see you when you’re sick,” said Jake.
The mage looked seconds away from coughing up his lungs, but they had no choice. They couldn’t leave him here. If he could walk, he was coming with them. the well was Solly’s only chance. There would be poison in antidotes down there. If the Watcher was bringing human children here, there were bound to be accidents. Surely people got poisoned by accident from time to time, and the Watcher would need a way to stop that.
“Down the hatch,” said Jake. He tipped some of the spider mutoction into his mouth. Faei followed suit, then Solly. They gave it a few minutes to work, then they stood over the well.
Jake peered down into the darkness below. Was he really going to try this? He didn’t feel any different.
He turned away from the wall. He pointed his hands out at the forest like Spiderman.
“What are you doing?” asked Faei.
“Just checking something.”
He flicked his wrist, but nothing happened. The mutoction certainly hadn’t given him the power to make webs. What else could spiders do? Was there something he was missing, like great eyesight? The ability to scurry out of reach when someone with a glass tried to capture you?
From beyond them, somewhere in the forest, they heard cracking sounds.
“Something’s coming,” said Faei. “We better try this now, or not at all.”
Jake suppressed a gulp. He took a breath and puffed his chest out. There was nothing else left to try, but to climb.
He focused on his urban exploring days back home, and how he’d always been the first over the fence. It was the same this time. Faei was a hell of a lot tougher than Elliot, but Jake would need to lead the way again.
He climbed onto the well and sat so that his legs dangled over the edge above the abyss. Only his well-balanced bottom and his hands stopped him plummeting down now.
Okay, what was the best way to do this? Just let go and drop?
No. There might have been no other place to go, but he wouldn’t just plunge down.
He reached down with one arm, gripping the rim of the well with his other hand, until he touched the cold inside of the well. Then, he pressed his hand flat against it.
This was it. The test.
More crashing sounds came from the forest.
“Jake
…whatever it is, it’s getting closer,” said Faei.
Fuck it.
He tried pulling his hand away, only to find resisted more than he’d expected. He brought his hand up, only to see that it was coated with fine, bristly hairs.
Great, the mutoction had worked, but it still didn’t seem like two hands would gave him enough grip. After all, spiders used eight legs to climb.
“Take off your boots,” he told Faei.
“What?”
“You too, Solly.”
Together, the three of them scuttled down the well wall. The stone was cold on his hands and feet, and the further he went into the darkness, the more of a sense of dread he got. It seemed to take forever, as if they were going miles underground. It reminded him of the staircase in the portal warehouse, which had seemed never ending. Until it eventually ended.
It was the same with the well. Before long, as his arms and legs began to cry for rest, he saw the dim glow of torch light. Just a few minutes later the well ended, and Jake dropped down into the spiders’ lair.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Entering a spider’s den and expecting anything less than a dirt-filled, cobweb-strewn mass of tunnels would have been stupid. When Jake dropped from the well, followed by Faei and Solly, he looked around. He stood in the epicenter of a series of tunnels, with mud passageways going off in all directions. There must have been a dozen routes that led away from them. Given that the well was one of the ways out, it must have been well used.
This fact became clear when, in a tunnel sprouting to the north east, Jake saw a dark blob scurrying in the shadows.
He grabbed Faei. “This way,” he said, leading them through a tunnel to the west. He had no clue where it went, but he just needed to get them away from the well.
The tunnels were small enough that Jake had to bend his head, yet wide enough that he and Faei could walk side by side, with Solly trailing at the back. They were well constructed, forming perfect arches through the mud. This was no mere spider den. It was much more advanced than that. The spider-humanoids had pride in their home, it seemed. Either that, or they worked under orders from a more aesthetically-prone mind. Maybe the Watcher had a flair for design.
As they walked down the tunnel, they started to hear the sound of whispering, mixed with groans of pain.
Jake was about to speak, when a weight crashed into him. He lurched forward. Faei caught his arm and stopped him falling.
Jake drew his dagger. He turned to find Solly looking sheepish.
“Sorry” said Solly. “Lost my footing. Cramped spaces, insects…this isn’t my ideal place.”
“You walk next to Faei, and I’ll lead,” said Jake.
The further they got, the surer he was that someone was whispering ahead of him. He doubted it was spiders making the noise, but then, if some of them had human faces, who knew what they were capable of?
“Faei, you’re the sneakiest of us,” he said. “Can you go on ahead a little and tell us what you see?”
“Oh really, because I’m the sneakiest? Sure it’s not because you’re scared?”
“Spiders with human faces, humans with spider bodies, darkness, dirt, being stuck underground. What’s there to fear?” said Jake.
Solly shivered. His face had gone paler at every word.
Faei sighed. “Wait here. Try not to die in the few seconds I’m away.”
She crept on ahead so quiet that Jake couldn’t hear her footsteps, which reassured him. She stuck close to the tunnel side and seemed to meld into the darkness.
“Hope she’s okay,” said Solly.
Ever since going into the Widow Leaf maze, Solly’s psyche had been going downhill. Jake didn’t blame him. Everyone had their phobias, but most people hid them. From somewhere, this idea had emerged that it wasn’t manly to show any signs of fear. Like you were supposed to be fearless just because you weren’t born with breasts. The thing was, it went against every human instinct to try and be that way. As a species, we were hard wired to use fear to stay alive. That was why he didn’t blame Solly for being scared. After all, if they were walking through a tunnel filled with smashed glass, Jake would have been petrified. And that was a much harder phobia to explain.
Jake gave Solly a gentle punch on the arm. “You’ll be fine, you know.”
“The sooner we escape this horrible pit the sooner I’ll be happy. The air makes my skin crawl. So unwholesome; it reminds me of the time I booked a room in a brothel that I thought was a tavern.”
“We just need to find Cason, and we’re out of here.”
Ahead of them, Faei made a sound somewhere in-between the call of a bird and squeak of a rat. The tunnel was dark, but he could just about see her beckoning them over.
Jake and Solly approached her. More than once, the mage walked so close to him that Jake almost lost his balance.
“It’s hard enough in the darkness without you walking close enough to feel my bum,” said Jake.
When they reached Faei, Jake spoke.
“You know, secret call sounds work better when we agree them in advance.”
She put her hand to her lip. She pointed to her right.
There, ten feet of the tunnel had been dug away to form a room. There were three dirt walls, one at the back and two at the sides, while the part closest to them was covered by a thick web weaved from intertwining strands. The darkness and webbing made it impossible to see much of the room, but the whispering and moaning was strongest there.
“Is somebody there?” hissed a voice.
“Who do you think it is?” asked Solly, looking at Faei.
“A trap,” she whispered.
“Or prisoners,” added Jake.
“If it’s prisoners, we have to help them,” said Faei, “But if it’s a trap, we’re in trouble.”
“Thank you for telling us the obvious, dear,” said Solly.
“Look who suddenly grew balls.”
Either option was likely, Jake thought. Thotl would have met the Watcher by now, so he would know Jake and his party were on their way to the den. He might not know exactly where they were yet, but it wouldn’t take long for him to find out. Besides, the Watcher seemed to have orchestrated the whole thing; kidnapping Cason, Thotl’s pursuit. It was all to drive them here. It wouldn’t have been crazy to think that the Watcher had prepared traps in advance.
Then again, there were the rumors of the Watcher stealing children from towns and villagers. If the rumors were true, then it wouldn’t be strange for prisoners to be here.
He decided he’d rather take a chance and be wrong, than have a black mark on his conscience.
“If they’re prisoners, we need to help them,” he said.
He took a potion vial out of his pocket, inspected it, then swapped it for another until he had the one he wanted.
“Stand back,” he told his friends.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m about to show you the dance of my people,” said Jake. “I’m getting rid of the web, what do you think I’m doing?”
Faei nocked a bolt on her bow and then stood back, the string taut, her gaze on the cobweb wall.
Jake carefully sprinkled drops of dissolve potion on the cobweb. Now, above all times, he was grateful for his steady hand skill. The webbing was thick, and it took a few seconds for the potion to burn through. Soon, tendrils of smoke twisted up and the potion burned a hole big enough for them to step through.
Jake went first. He held his dagger at his side and prepared to use it at the first sign of trouble. Faei and Solly came after.
“I think we can risk some light,” said Faei. “If it was a trap, we’d know if by now.”
“Go for it,” said Jake.
She ran her hand over a bolt. Orange spectral flames spread across it, casting a dim glow that reached out a few feet beyond the bolt. Through the dance of the flame, the room began to reveal itself. Jake saw brown walls with wisps of cobwebs stuck to them. At the far end of the room were five
people; three adults, a teenage boy and a little girl.
Cobwebs were wrapped around their ankles and tied against metal loops on the wall. They had some limited movement judging by the length of the webs, but they chose to stay as far away from Jake as possible. They looked pale, gaunt, and defeated. Where he could measure their health from the pallor of their skin and thickness of their arms, the defeated look came from their eyes.