Ascend Online

by Luke Chmilenko

  We watched the tree line, steadily feeling our two scouts make their way back to us, before long I spotted a glimpse of Sierra’s red hair peeking from her helmet as she and Constantine stealthily crept from the forest edge and made their way over.

  “Hey! We found-” Sierra started to report, greeting us with a wave, right before her eyes went to the water. “Hang on… why are there so many spiders in the water?”

  “Hmm?” I looked behind me and shrugged. “Oh! We kept having stragglers attack us in singles or pairs, and we got bored of just killing them. So Drace and I just started punting them into the water to see who’d get one the furthest. They’ll all de-spawn in a minute or two.”

  Sierra stared at me in slight disbelief, waiting for me to tell her I was kidding. “You-you’re not joking?”

  “Not at all. Anyway, what’d you find?”

  “Um… well.” I saw a slight smile cross her face as she shook her head and muttered “Boys…”

  “We didn’t find what was causing it, but there’s something in the forest that is forcing the spiders to push east en-masse, almost as if they were fleeing from something.”

  “Well… I guess that explains their aggression and why there are so many of them out this way.” I paused to scratch under my helmet as I thought. “What do you recommend we do? If they’re running away from something, then we should definitely look into it, else they’ll push right into Aldford.”

  “Yeah, that was my thought too.” Sierra nodded, then turned to look at the forest, mentally retracing her steps. “We should keep going further west, then make our way back northeast once we can find a way into the forest without getting swarmed.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” I said waving everyone else over. “Let’s get moving.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up there,” Sierra said holding a finger up as she spotted an approaching Spiderling. “We can’t leave yet.”

  “Hmm? Why not?”

  “Because I haven’t punted a spider yet.”

  ***

  “Got it!” Sierra exclaimed in triumph as her bow sang and a Spiderling fell from the tree. “Move up! There’s a small group ahead we’ll need to take down too.”

  “Good shot,” I said as I mentally triggered my Blink-Step spell, successfully managing to blink forward five feet and reaching Alteration Level 6 in the process. Following Sierra’s and Constantine’s lead, we circled Crater Lake and entered the forest from the west and had steadily been making our way back north towards the Webwood.

  So far the spider density in this part of the woods was drastically lower than the roaming hordes we were constantly encountering earlier, re-enforcing Sierra’s theory that the spiders were migrating east.

  “Look.” I pointed ahead as we hustled forward, indicating a tattered, web-covered tree ahead of us. “This tree is dying and looks like it has been choked by the webs for a while. We’re almost into the heart of the Webwood.”

  “What are we going to do then?” Constantine asked. “Wander until we trip over the Ley Line?”

  “That or whatever is driving the spiders crazy,” I replied watching Sierra nock an arrow and take aim. “Assuming they’re not the same thing…”

  “Incoming!” Sierra whispered urgently as she loosed an arrow, quickly followed by another one. The two arrows flew through the air before piercing two spiderlings hiding in the nearby tree, killing them instantly.

  Four more spiderlings fell from the tree chittering angrily as they sprinted towards us. A pair of magical bolts flashed past me, sending one spider to the ground smoldering. Drace, Constantine and I quickly sprang forward and effortlessly dispatched the remaining three.

  “These things are hardly even worth the effort…” Constantine grumbled as he flicked his daggers clean. “Thirteen experience points… bah! It’s going to take nearly, uh, sixteen-hundred more of these just to hit level 11…”

  “The critter is only level seven,” Drace said with a shrug. “Considering how easily we can squish one of them now, I’d say that’s pretty generous.”

  “Yeah… I’m just putting everything into Leadership experience for the time being,” I spoke while checking our surroundings for telltale glows of red or blue, which would indicate either something of interest or something hostile. “Just a few dozen spiders away from another Leadership Skill Point!”

  “Sweet,” Constantine said with a smile as he grabbed the loot off the dead spiderlings. “I can definitely feel that speed buff already.”

  “Hey, Lyr. Check this out.” Caius waved me over to the tree that the spiders had been hiding in, where Halcyon and Sierra were looking at something.

  “Eh? What’s up?” I asked as I approached the tree.

  “We found… claw marks on the tree,” Halcyon said pointing to deep gashes all along the tree base. “Judging by the ragged webbing here, I’d say it happened fairly recently too.”

  Following Halcyon’s hand, I bent down to take a look at the gashes, finding dozens of them, ranging from a few inches or over two feet in length. “Looks pretty vicious, maybe from a wandering bear or another Wolverine like Drace found?”

  “I… don’t think so,” Sierra said shaking her head as she pointed to the claw marks. “These are barely shoulder high if it were a bear or a giant wolverine… there’d be markings higher up the tree.”

  “Hmm.”

  “That’s not all, though.” She traced the claw marks with a finger. “None of these are parallel to one another or grouped together.”

  “What does that mean exactly?” Drace asked while keeping an eye on the surrounding forest.

  “My guess… that whatever did this only had one claw.”

  “A spider then?” Constantine said aloud. “Plenty of them have just a single claw… per claw… ugh, you know what I mean.”

  “I have no idea…but I think the spiderlings tried to get away from something, but whatever was chasing it couldn’t follow them up the tree.”

  “Hrm.” I scratched my head as I digested Sierra’s assessment. “I guess we’re going the right way.”

  “Shall we push forward then?” Sierra asked quickly scanning the woods. “I don’t see any spiderlings hiding nearby anymore. We should be able to move faster now.”

  “Yeah, let’s see if we can find more marked up trees like this.” I motioned for Sierra to take the lead. “Maybe we’ll be able find whatever’s doing this.”

  ***

  No longer forced to stop every few paces to deal with a nest of spiders, we quickly flew through the oldest parts of the Webwood as we headed northeast. The sound of our crunching boots was all that filled the air, as the trees were far too encumbered with webs to even whisper in the wind.

  It’s like the entire forest has been suddenly abandoned, I thought to myself.

  The eerie silence began to weigh on us as we moved through the woods, eventually spotting other trees with claw marks on them. At first, it was a single tree every few dozen meters, then a handful every ten meters, at some point we passed an invisible wall, and it became impossible to find a tree that wasn’t clawed in some way.

  “Well, this is getting a bit creepy,” Caius commented nervously as we approached an area free of trees, yet still covered by all the forest’s canopy. “I can hear all of your heartbeats and only your heartbeats by the way, so I know I’m not the only one that thinks so.”

  “It’s as if everything just… left,” Constantine replied. “Did this start happening yesterday when the spiderlings invaded Aldford?”

  “Who knows?” Sierra whispered, holding an arrow nocked to her bow as she looked around. “I’m just wondering why didn’t we see any spiderlings earlier in the day when we descended towards Crater Lake?”

  “Maybe whatever was chasing them stopped here?” I suggested as we approached the clearing. Web-covered branches littered the ground here.

  My eye spotted something jutting from a tangle of leaves and web. Is that fabric? I grabbed at the piece and gav
e it a sharp tug pulling free a large brown sheet free from the pile. “Hang on… is this a tent?”

  “Shit! This is a tent!” Broken support sticks tumbled out of the tent as I turned it over in my hands. “What is it doing here?”

  “Well, I am totally spooked now…” Halcyon muttered as he nervously conjured a ball of blue fire in his hand after he saw me pull up the tent. “…and I’d really appreciate if we dialed back the spookiness back down to manageable levels…”

  “Dude, you can’t use that word unless there’s a skeleton around,” Constantine chided Halcyon nervously.

  “This isn’t the time to joke!” Halcyon snapped.

  “Quiet!” I hissed as my eyes scanned the clearing. “Check the area out!”

  Sierra and Drace quickly moved forward and began picking through the broken branches in the clearing. Who tried to hide this and who did they hide it from?

  “Lyr,” Sierra said as she dragged a torn pack from a pile of branches. “This was the expedition camp Natasha was a part of!”

  She quickly made her way over to me and showed me an emblem on the bag. “This is the Eberian Mage’s Guild Insignia! It’s stitched right onto the bag! We saw this on flying banners when we were in Eberia!”

  “Shit! This camp was attacked by goblins!” I exclaimed remembering Natasha’s recollection of the attack. I quickly looked around what I now knew to be a campsite, trying to envision the attack. “Why did they try to hide the campsite? There’s no one here for miles… especially if they were set to attack Aldford.”

  “Maybe they didn’t…” Drace mused as he cleared away some debris. “Check out these branches. They’re all broken… hell, some of them even look mangled like they were crushed by something.”

  He paused to look up into the forest canopy. “Look up there… there are a ton of branches that are all broken too.”

  Curious, I walked over to Drace’s vantage point and followed his gaze. “Huh, you’re right. I wonder how that happened.”

  We stood silently for a moment as we tried to puzzle the sequence of events out.

  “A spider stampede?” Sierra suggested after a moment. “We know something was chasing them, the spiders probably tried to escape by running tree to tree, but when they got to this clearing… they had no other branches in reach…

  “And with enough spiders on a branch…” Drace trailed off.

  The longer I stay in this world, the harder it becomes to remember it’s just a game. I thought to myself as I shook my head with a sigh, trying to banish the terrifying vision of a spider stampede. Events just happen, with or without us.

  “Uh… guys? I hate to interrupt…” Caius called out urgently. “…but we aren’t alone anymore…”

  Chapter 26

  Snapping back to the present, I whirled on Caius as I drew Razor, “Where?”

  Caius shook his head as he struggled to make out what his Bloodsense ability was telling him. “Everywhere.”

  We quickly formed up back-to-back in the center of the clearing as we nervously stared out into the forest.

  “It’s getting closer,” Caius whispered as he readied a glowing blue missile in his hand.

  My eyes scanned the forest around us, looking for whatever it was that Caius could hear. A faint aura of blue caught my eye, outlining a strange crawling shape in the distance, followed by another, and another.

  Shit! We’re surrounded! I turned around, scanning the entirety of the forest around us, seeing pale blue auras all around us.

  “Halcyon…” I started to say.

  “Yeah… I see it too, Lyr…” he said nervously.

  “See what?!” Sierra hissed as she drew her bow, ready to fire.

  “Magic auras,” I explained. “Spider sized… I think… all around us.”

  “Oh fuck!”

  The auras started to increase in brightness as the circle around us tightened, giving better clarity to the shape beneath the aura.

  “Guys… these don’t look like they’re spiderling sized…” Halcyon said nervously as he took half a step backwards into our circle.

  He’s right. My head spun as I looked all around us, the auras coalescing into a dozen, three foot tall, multi-limbed creatures. I conjured a flare in my hand as I mentally prepared myself for combat.

  No sense in waiting for them to jump us.

  “Sierra, shoot where you see my Flare go!” I started barking out orders as I readied to toss my tiny fireball. “Halcyon, paint your target! Caius follow his lead! Be careful, they may explode if they die!”

  I threw my flare at the brightest target I could see, it blazing through twenty feet of air unerringly before splashing against the creature. A pair of expertly shot arrows quickly thudded deep into the creature as Sierra found her mark.

  There was a single heartbeat of silence before the entire forest screamed in pain.

  Blue light flared as a horde of creatures illuminated themselves and immediately shot forward from the nearby brush with an unexpected burst of speed, covering the intervening distance in less time than it took to blink.

  In the split instant as a pair of creatures launched themselves at me, I saw what they were.

  It was a spider unlike I had ever seen before, completely night black and sleeker than anything its size had a right to be. Blue veins traced over the spider’s carapace, pulsing with a malevolent energy that both the Aberration and Horror had lacked. Oversized, barbed pedipalps framed an equally massive pair of fangs.

  Then there were the claws.

  They were massive, almost beyond comprehension for a creature the spider’s size. Two wicked scythe-like claws comprised the entirety of the spider’s front-most legs, gleaming with the same pale blue malevolence that the body shared.

  Everything about the spider screamed danger, instinct shouting at me to flee.

  As a pair of these creatures sailed through the air towards me, I had enough time to read a single tag that appeared in my vision.

  [Webwood Predator – Level 10]

  I caught a pair of the glowing claws on Razor as the two Predators leaped on me, trying to bear me down to the ground. The second pair of claws bit through my armor and sliced into my upraised forearm, drawing blood and making me hiss in pain. It was all I could do not to flinch away from the pain, and bring the spiders crashing down directly on me. Weathering the impact, I felt my feet slide across the ground until I felt my shoulders bump Halcyon in the back.

  A [Webwood Predator] slices you for 21 points of damage!

  A [Webwood Predator] slices you for 24 points of damage!

  Gritting my teeth, I shoved back at the spiders with a yell as I struggled to cancel their momentum, feeling yet another hot wave of pain as the claws sawed deep into my arm. Barely dodging a flailing pedipalp, I felt it scrape across my helmet ineffectively, inches away from blinding me as I threw the two Predators off me.

  “Aaaah!” I heard Constantine scream in pain behind me as the Predators crashed to the ground before me. Not willing to chance a glance behind me, I quickly uttered the trigger word for Shocking Touch filling the hand that held Razor full of electricity.

  I felt the charge course through my arm as I slashed down with my sword, putting extra power behind the blow.

  You [Power Attack I] a [Webwood Predator] for 41 points of damage!

  Your [Shocking Touch] discharges into a [Webwood Predator] for 39 points of damage!

  I felt Razor cut easily through the spider as the spell discharged itself through the metal blade. The creature flinched momentarily as the electricity shot through it.

  “I’m going to need help here!” I heard Halcyon shout. “I can’t hold this shield much longer!”

  “Constantine needs healing!” Caius yelled directly after Halcyon. “And I need a victim to drain! They are too fast for me to catch!”

  My response was taken from me as my two enemies had recovered blindingly fast and slashed out at me furiously. Gods! It’s like fighting a pair of angry blen
ders! I feverously worked Razor through a set of dizzying parries as I tried to deflect their claws into one another’s path. Even then they still scored half a dozen glancing blows.

  If something doesn’t change quickly, I’m going to die from a thousand paper cuts!

  Little did I know that Sierra was about to answer my prayer.

  “Caius!” Sierra shouted. “How long do you need to heal Constantine?!”

  “Uh, three seconds!” he replied, slightly unsure. “Maybe four!”

  “I’m going to try and give you five!” Sierra yelled and suddenly sprinted out of the circle with an unearthly grace as she activated Windrunner’s Stride, effortlessly dodging past a trio of Predators in her way.