by Harry Nix
Under the chill of the gloom status I could feel anger bubbling up inside me. I’d give Isabel another minute to lift a key, if he was carrying it, before just calling for an all-out attack. Being torn to pieces by angry spiders seemed a good way for the Apothecary to go.
At the thought of it, a small timer flashed up in my vision, starting a countdown.
“Oh, you’ll give me that but I can’t see any stats? Like none at all?” I whispered.
There was a flicker of a spinning wheel before my view exploded with numbers and lines, so many I couldn’t see a thing. There were names and weights, colors, temperatures, prices, tensile strength... what the hell? Quite literally everything around me had thousands of data points coming off it, each with their own color-coded line.
It was an horrific mess, almost totally blocking out the world around me. One of the spiders strapped down had a list of thousands of colors in CMYK scrolling down in front of me.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I whispered again.
The wheel flickered and they vanished, leaving faint afterimages of greens and reds.
“I just want a few stats. Mine firstly.”
I waited and checked but nothing happened. Was Lucy just screwing with me? Or was this something else? Like the Lubochenkos monitoring what I was doing?
The timer had vanished with the lines and I was about ready to call attack when there was a burst of golden light on the far side of the room. The Apothecary snapped around with his odd jerky speed and was already moving when there was another burst of light. I stood up and saw Isabel, a key in her hand with her face turned away from the light. The locks had no keyhole. She’d just pressed the key against the metal and unlocked them.
“Attack!” I yelled, already running.
The first spider Isabel had freed was struggling to move. The harness around it had come free but it was still tangled somewhat, plus it appeared weakened by captivity. The second one was alive but not even moving, just staring at nothing, not even reacting to the sudden glow of light.
I aimed Bolt and then pulled myself back at the last moment. There were too many spiders between me and the Apothecary and with his jerky run, he’d be near impossible to hit.
As I bolted down the row, spiders began to call out. The children at first but then some of the adults.
“We need the key! He has the key!” they all started saying. Some began to struggle against their bonds, which just made them tighten automatically, the spiked ring pressing into them.
Isabel got three more spiders unlocked before the Apothecary was upon her. He’d pulled a short cudgel from somewhere. It had lines of glowing color running down it—a sickly yellow, acid green, bloody red.
Behind me I could hear Ebony and her spiders running, making their ways down the rows. I knew Scarlet would be back there somewhere too.
Isabel saw me coming and quick as a flash hurled the key across the room. I’d like to say it flew straight and true and I snatched it out of the air but it was too high, too fast and I barely got a finger to it, sending it spinning off into the gloom. I dropped my net too, adding to the shame.
“Mine,” hissed the Apothecary as he came closer to Isabel.
As soon as he spoke I realized I’d been wrong. He wasn’t a man at all. His odd movements, the hunch... he was like Ahab, the owner of the White Glove, wearing his fake rubbery hands to not scare off his customers.
The Apothecary wasn’t a Hopper though. As I watched him waving the cudgel I could see he wasn’t holding it. It was part of him. Some kind of stinger maybe.
I’d been about to cast Vibrate on it, try to pull it out of his hand but if it was his body, it wouldn’t work. At the last moment I aimed at his cloak and cast instead.
I’d been hoping to see him wrenched half across the room, choked by his own clothing but no such luck. He merely stumbled backwards before his cloak ripped and went flying. He was wearing a white shirt underneath that did nothing to hide the misshapen wreck of his body.
The stumble was enough for Isabel to put some space between them.
I veered off course and went running for the key.
“Over here!” a spider called out, a few rows across.
I skipped between the tables and soon spotted the key. Like the locks it was glowing golden. It gave me a jolt when I touched it and warmth flowed up my arm, like I was sinking into a hot bath. The heat washed over me and the gloom status vanished.
A counter-magic to the gloom keeping everyone suppressed?
I turned to unlock the nearest spider and then pulled my hand back, barely missing the cudgel swinging down. The Apothecary hit the spider, the green light spreading over it’s body, eating into it. It was acidic, just as I thought.
Damn, he was fast. Supernaturally so.
I dodged back to make some space and saw the cudgel spin, bringing the red side to face down. The green had dulled after use and appeared to be slowly refilling from the bottom.
Up close the Apothecary looked six kinds of wrong. His face was young but he had the beard which didn’t seem to be hair but veins of some kind. He moved his mouth to hiss at me but his face didn’t move properly with it. It was a mask of some kind, despite looking flesh and blood.
I cast Bolt and it hit him in the face before his cudgel lashed out and caught me on the wrist. There was a blinding pain as everything from the end of my right wrist down exploded in a bloody spray. Pieces of finger and bone hit me as I went toppling backwards, crashing to the cold stone floor.
If he’d hit me again, I’d be dead but the spiders were fast and so was Scarlet.
A fireball hit him square in the side of the head and then Ebony crashed into him at high speed. There was a burst of purple as he flailed at her and managed to get to his feet. In the close quarters, there wasn’t enough room for everyone to attack at once. Ebony swayed for just an instant before turning on another spider, her eyes glowing purple. She leaped, smashing it into one of the tables in a sudden vicious attack.
I saw a spray of blood go up from the spider and then another jetting up from my wrist before Isabel was by my side. She pulled a powder from her cloak and dropped it on the stump. It looked like black pepper but smelt like orange. Before I could ask what it was, a flame appeared between her fingers, a wax match and then I knew true agony as the powder flared up, cauterizing the wound and sealing it.
Surprisingly, my health was only down by about a quarter from having my hand exploded off my wrist. I noticed that once I’d stopped screaming in pain.
I saw another fireball, this one hitting Ebony in the face, flung by an unseen Scarlet. Ebony was fighting one of the spiders and winning. She’d already snapped off two of it’s legs. All around us spiders were moaning and pleading.
The purple was obviously some kind of confusion toxin, something that turned you against your allies.
But not all was lost just yet. There were still four spiders attacking the Apothecary, plus one more had freed itself.
The only advantage the Apothecary had was the spiders couldn’t all get to him easily with the tables in the way. His cudgel was back around to green but the line was hardly filled at all. He swiped one of the spiders across the eyes, drawing a line of acid that seared four of them away in an instant.
The cudgel spun and another spider lost of the tip of a leg in a bloody spray.
The cudgel spun and the third spider turned on the fourth but only for a few moments before the glow faded from its eyes.
I got to my feet and realized I’d somehow kept hold of the key in all this. It was still warm in my hand.
My staff was on the ground, covered in my own blood. I could call it, go on the attack, try to hold Ebony off or go after the Apothecary.
I chose the third way instead.
As Scarlet advanced, tossing smaller fireballs at Ebony to drive her back, I moved down the line of spiders, touching the locks with the key. Each time the light flared, hurting my eyes but I just kept moving. With no
lock to turn, it was fast and in the space of a few breaths I’d freed more than twenty spiders.
I reached the end of the row and turned around to see Isabel helping them out of their harnesses. She was focusing on the ones who were responding and leaving the ones staring at nothing.
I saw the Apothecary look across at me with his serene face. He’d been backed down the rows by the spiders. Too late we saw that he’d come to where his cloak had landed.
With a swift movement he had it up off the floor and his other hand inside it. He tossed something the size of a pebble.
There was searing light and an explosion. I crashed to the floor but was up again, clenching the key in my hand. The light wasn’t fading though and it took a moment to realize he’d detonated a hole in the wall, leading to the outside world.
The Apothecary was gone.
Ebony was swaying on her feet, the purple glow gone from her eyes. The spider she was fighting with was torn up but still alive. Scarlet was still alive and so were two of the other four spiders we’d come with. The others were blown to bits, plus a number of spiders strapped to the tables near where the pebble had landed. There were pieces of net scattered about the place; Scarlet must have flung it at the Apothecary and missed.
“The key!” Isabel demanded, appearing in front of me. I let her take it, watching her sprint through the room over to a spider trapped near the middle. Isabel freed the spider and then they embraced.
It was then I noticed Ori’s symbol had lit up again. I pressed it with my free hand but unlike last time where the spell took over my hands and voice and summoned him, this time only part of it happened. I spoke the words, black flames appeared on my remaining hand and part of a portal formed but then collapsed.
My stump of a hand was hurting as waves of magic sought to flow out fingers that were splattered across the floor somewhere.
I swore briefly but decided to deal with it later. The Apothecary was surely bringing reinforcements. Even now he could be calling that elevator up. The smooth wall might break open any moment and we’d be attacked.
Thankfully, Isabel had kept moving. She was running down the rows tapping the key as fast as she could. Scarlet was following and there were other spiders who’d freed themselves coming to help.
Some of the freed Spiders were spinning webs, wrapping them around empty tables and then weaving strands towards the gaping hole in the wall.
I helped free spiders until there were no more spiders to free.
Most were in bad shape. At least a quarter were comatose, unmoving. Many were having trouble seeing, the bright sunlight outside too much for them. Children were crying and panicking and others were trying to calm them.
A spider the size of a border collie carefully approached me when I went over to the hole, to look at the sheer drop down.
“I can’t find momma,” she said.
“I...”
I had nothing to say to the kid.
Ebony rushed in and rescued me, taking the child with her as I stood with my mouth open like an idiot.
“More are coming!” spiders began to shout.
I couldn’t see anyone but who knows, maybe they were feeling vibrations in the floor.
Spiders immediately began to push at some of the tables, managing to rip them off their foundations, piling them up against a sheer piece of wall.
Of course, they’d seen the Apothecary coming and going. They knew where the hidden entrance was.
With one hand I wasn’t much help but I managed to kick a few of the tables to pieces, helping build the pile. Ebony and some of the other spiders had already gone out the hole, spinning webs down the cliff as they went. I peered out and saw they were making webs like safety nets, down the cliff.
“Move aside,” a spider grunted at me.
There were two of them, carrying one of the comatose. They bundled the spider in web, attached it to a cord and then unceremoniously pushed it out the hole. It dropped like it was bungee jumping, except at the bottom was grabbed by another spider and the cord detached.
Like an efficient military operation, the spiders tossed out the comatose spiders first before the children followed, climbing down the webs. They were still struggling with the light but moving fast enough.
The spiders had woven over the mess of broken tables, sealing it against the wall. There was a crash from the other side and the faint sounds of shouting. The reinforcements were here.
Soon we were down to the last group of spiders, the strongest who’d been staying behind to protect against attack. Isabel rushed over to me, a vial in her hand. It wasn’t venom though but golden dust, gleaming like the locks had been. She pressed it into my one remaining hand.
“Pixie dust. He was using it to keep the spiders docile, probably also in those locks. I lifted it off him,” she said.
“Pixie?” Scarlet said.
She unstoppered the vial and a curl of gold escaped. It smelt like honeycakes and a warm bed, sunlight and deep relaxation all at once.
Scarlet stoppered the vial and it left all of us blinking in the aftermath.
“That means they have a pixie trapped here somewhere too. Rax must have her,” Isabel said.
“Delicious,” Scarlet murmured, tasting a speck of golden dust on the tip of her finger.
I slipped the vial into my pocket, wondering what use Pixie dust was.
Despite the weight of the pile of broken tables webbed against the wall, they were starting to move as guards on the other side shoved and shouted. A blade of a sword stuck through, someone using it to get leverage. Dreams of going back to strip the two guards of their armor vanished... not that I’d be able to do much with just one hand.
We followed Isabel over to the hole. She kissed a spider, Armando I assume, and then together they leaped out like they were couples bungee jumping.
“Summon your staff,” Scarlet reminded me, touching me on the shoulder. I called it with a thought and it rose up from the blood and muck, flying towards me. I caught it in my free hand.
The last of the spiders went out the hole and soon it was just us.
The room was full of blood and the trace of whatever explosive the Apothecary had used but I could still smell the honeycakes of the Pixie dust.
“You’re right, that dust is delicious.”
Scarlet smiled and brushed her hand against my cheek.
“Do you trust me?” she asked, smiling at me.
Her green eyes were luminous but she wasn’t using any inherent Demoness ability on me.
“I do,” I said.
“Well, we can save the I do for a more formal occasion, please and thank you,” Scarlet said. “Although we have technically bonded so is that the same?” she added.
She led me to the hole in the wall, still looking at me with that smile and those green eyes.
“You trust me to do what’s right?” she asked.
Where was this going?
“Uh... yeah. I do. I mean yes.”
Scarlet stepped closer, wrapping her arms around my body.
“I didn’t say the Pixie dust was delicious. I said Delicia. That’s her name. She’s a... friend... of mine. We need to discover if she’s prisoner here.”
She was close now, her arms wrapped around me, her face close to mine and despite the wall shoving open behind me and the fact we were standing by a sheer drop, all I could focus on was her. Those pauses... just like Ms. Honey.
No magic, no status effect.
Just her.
Which is exactly how she managed to pull both of us out the hole, no spider webs attached, plunging down the cliff to the sharp rocks below.
15
A graveyard, but no hole this time with a sneaky Demoness sitting up above. Just weathered tombstones. Still, I did the same thing as my first death—my body moving in terror and I went headfirst into a tombstone, before I tripped sideways and ended up on the grass, my forehead hurting and my health bar cut down.
“Damn!” I shouted
and sat up, looking for Scarlet so I could give that Demoness several pieces of my mind.
She wasn’t there though. It took me a moment to realize her icon was lit up again and then another moment for me to see my hand was back.
Death!
They say it’s the end but not for one such as you. Not here at least. I’m sure death will get you eventually but for now, you’re an immortal. Will you use your power for good or evil?
Oh, by the way, you lost some gold and your gear took some damage. Try not to die, yes?
No numbers on my clothes and newly bought third-hand armor but it appeared slightly worse off than before. I had a few tears here and there and some fraying at the seams. I’d had two gold before I’d died and now had a silver and eight coppers. A quick bit of math told me I’d lost ten percent of my money. Okay, not too bad a penalty.
Everything else was intact. My bag of holding still had its contents plus now the vial of golden pixie dust. I’d put it in my pocket but I guess it had transferred to my bag when I died. I wonder if I died with a full bag and something in my pocket what would happen?
Died... murdered. Killed by a Demoness who used her not inconsiderable charms to... charm me right off a cliff.
But... my heartbeat was slowing now in the calmness of the graveyard and with it went the anger that was perhaps just a dose of adrenaline surging through me. The sun was warm, tracking down the sky and there were wildflowers growing between some of the graves. I looked around, looking for a clue as to where I’d ended up and then nearly smacked myself when I remembered I had a map. A thought and it appeared. I was now to the North of Bron, maybe two hours away. The map had filled in my travels, which at this point looked like a sideways letter V. I’d left the graveyard where I’d bonded with Scarlet, come to Bron and then gone out to fight and eventually side with the spiders, going back and forth on that path a few times.
The note where we’d killed William and Mancer was still there but I ignored it. I wasn’t in the mood for that right now. Especially after learning I’d been killing sick infected spiders, sent on a quest by some evil Apothecary and whomever Rax was.