He did not have an answer for that. He looked back at the flames. Hulking spiders the size of horses were now also burning. Simply beautiful. Pleasure better than sex blossomed from deep within. He was at peace. All remaining tensions lifted from his neck and shoulder.
Too easy.
As usual and on cue, he celebrated too soon. Up the pass, around the bend, a massive spider larger than an elephant was making its way through. Those limbs were thicker and longer in proportion, those fangs each the size of an elephant’s tusk. A primal fear sank down Rowan’s chest when their eyes met. Like Tasha, he was not a fan of spiders.
Similar could not be said for Gabrielle. “Ooooo. That’s a big Mrs Spidey. I wonder if we can tame her. I bet I can!”
He recalled a thread she had linked; some tree-hugger had wasted a Soul Stone on an Elephant. “Please no.”
“Aww. Why not?”
“Have you forgotten your sister is phobic?”
“Hehe. Oops.” Her tone was signaling she hadn’t forgotten. So cruel.
The chatbox shook.
Gabby LeMort (To Rowan Black): I had Ayla buy some Slave Enchantment Stones. They work on beasts.
Rowan LeMort: Gotcha.
The queen spider halted before the burning carcasses as though afraid, as though contemplating a retreat. Those dozen eyes shifted left, then right. It was afraid. There was no intelligence behind those eyes, only instinct. It was nothing more than an overgrown bug that should’ve been squashed long ago.
Zaine aimed the sling at a steeper angle. He loaded twenty grenades and released.
The boom was deafening.
The queen spider was caught at the edge of the blast, her hairs igniting. She scrambled and trampled her spawn under her obese belly. She managed to put out the flames, but her leathery exoskeleton was falling apart. Her gooey insides leaked from a myriad of wounds. Dying, she screeched into the night as her legs failed her.
Easy. Shockingly easy.
But not dead yet.
Zaine peered right. He yelled, “Finish?!”
Before Rowan could give the order, Gabrielle asked no on in particular, “Are ya sure ya don’t want a spider pet?”
Stone-faced, Liluth stated, “I do not want a spider pet.”
“Aww. Row? Last chance. No regrets.”
He gave the offer some extra consideration. What was the use of a giant spider as a pet apart from combat? Could their hairy bodies be sheared? Milked for venom? Did they shed their skin every so often? Was farming them even an option? Ranching carnivores was generally unwise—on Earth.
But on Sortis, a spider pet was worth the effort for its combat prowess alone. Tasha would have to woman the hell up.
Rowan yelled down the wall, “Don’t finish! I want a spider pet!”
Zaine shrugged, but a hint of shock betrayed his stoic demeanor. Skylar and Luthias too. Where had Saeya and Jassin gone? Back to safety.
Gabrielle jumped off his back, manic glee consuming her. “Yaaaaay! You’re the best Demon Lord! Giddy-up, Mrs Spidey!”
Oh. She just wanted a mount. He had assumed she had been on his wavelength regarding that Troll town.
Liluth whimpered crocodile tears. “This is all a bad dream.”
“Nope.” Gabrielle clapped her shoulder. “You’re gonna be healing it. Come on, let’s go!”
Chuckling, he helped the girls flip the ladder over the wall. Taming a spider couldn’t be that hard, right
Again, that sixth rung on the ladder bent and creaked when Rowan let it support his weight. And Gabrielle’s lighter weight. Similar for Liluth. While the girls seemingly did not care, he was secretly writing safety codes for future construction jobs. This was no joke. How embarrassing would it be to have Elves die while building a castle?
On the ground, the sour smell of burnt spider corpses was almost hallucination inducing. Rowan cleared a path of the queen with a stream of hellfire. Magic was thick in the air, and when he was a dozen yards from the writhing queen, ambient mana was hot quicksand. The queen herself was generating usable mana.
Huntsman Spider Queen (Level 32)
Health: 46%
Burned, Crippled
Only level 32.
And she wasn’t just generating mana for everyone to use out of generosity. She was partaking in the outpour. Under that ruined carapace, she was undergoing a change. A metamorphosis. One by one, pieces and layers of her charred exoskeleton fell to the ground. An inner green cocoon writhed and beat like a heart.
Either transfixed in the gross display, or eager for a real fight, or both, Rowan did not interrupt the queen’s metamorphosis. He held out a hand, signaling a halt. He stood with Moonfyre held at the ready, Gabrielle at his side with Joybringer bouncing in her grasp. He positioned himself slightly ahead of her.
She giggled. “You’re not gonna go protective mode on me, are ya?”
“Only slightly.” He swallowed sour spit. As for the slaves… “Liluth. Zaine. Luthias. Get back.”
Luthias said confidently, “I do not believe you are strong enough, my lord.”
“Then get ready.”
Skylar asked, “What about me?”
Gabrielle peered over her shoulder. “Stand a bit further back. A bit further.”
“Here?”
“Further. Yep, that’s good!”
Rowan was half expecting a trap door to swallow Skylar whole.
Then a bladed claw ripped through the cocoon in a burst of slime and gunk, followed by a slender limb, then a bulbous-triangular body attached to five more bladed claws. Its head was elongated and alien-like. A dozen neon eyes blinked in unison as fangs extended. All in all, it was small, about half the size it had been.
A potent wave of sticky mana rolled down the pass. Visible frothing magic stung exposed skin. The transformed queen shot into the air, somersaulting, her legs coiling around her metallic green carapace. Harsh screeches echoed.
Adamantite Spider Queen (Level 34)
Health: 100%
With a static buzz, the Queen vanished.
Slick pain stabbed into Rowan’s back. Blood sprayed as an adamantite claw pushed through his front. It missed his heart by inches. His vision blurred as the claw twisted. Gabrielle’s broken scream put his heart in a vice, a different type of pain. Worst of all, his new fur coat was ruined.
Not a heartbeat later, the claw withdrew, and the world spun. Ribs crunched against the mountainside. Moonfyre clunked to the ground. He was somehow still alive, but his health bar was emptying faster than it had ever before. The fumes of his blood was nauseating.
He elbowed the bloody, rolled onto the side. The scene unfolding was a macabre type of beauty worthy of an album of screenshots. He snapped away, uncorking a health potion. Strawberry goodness poured into his mouth. This was the flavor of real, universal healing magic. No light or dark conditions like brands.
Atop the wall, Liluth was standing atop a crenelation. Her lips moved. Two words. Golden-white light beams from her palms. Her Healing Light’s range was vast, over fifty yards, sweeping the pass left to the right in a wide cone. Every Elf’s health bar refilled in her party list while Gabrielle’s took a hit.
As the tank, Luthias at last invoked Taunt. The Queen turned toward him. A slash glanced his blacksteel tower shield, then a upward straight cut proved blacksteel did not hold against adamantite better than unarmored flesh. A chunk of his shoulder was hacked right off. He bellowed in pain. His knees folded.
But the Queen was already finished.
That five second taunt had been more than enough for damage dealers to capitalize. Gabrielle had been transparent black death, whacked away with a miasma-imbued Joybringer. Where were her skills? She had forgotten that she too was a Swordsman.
A Swordsman like Zaine, who had dashed into position behind the Queen and unleashed a devastating combo: Crescent Slash into Twinpoint Thrust into Heaven’s Guillotine in four seconds. A falling curtain of light blue mana had severed a hind leg and stopped a fatal
blow to Luthias.
The Queen scuttled back a few yards only to lose another leg to Skylar’s Explosive Arrow going off at a weak spot where its adamantite did not cover.
At the same time, from behind a boulder, Saeya jumped into the fray, her staff flushed with glittering mana, her expression fiercer than it had ever been before. Flames spewed from that tiny gem, bathed the Queen head to abdomen. Hardly effective.
Another arrow from Skylar tore off a third leg, the Queen wailing in agony.
Pieces of red-hot adamantite landed near Rowan as he
The Queen wasn’t done. Her carapace started flashing bright emerald like a bomb counting down. The mana around her gathered and compressed into an unbearable density, Rowan struggling to breathe under the weight.
That was the cue for Gabrielle to end it. Joybringer plunged deep. And with a half-twirl and flick of her arm, that domed head was lopped right off. Remnants of the Queens magic coalesced into three loot gems. Finished. And for a second there, Gabrielle looked a lot like her future self.
Rowan downed his fifth health potion. Healing magics finally sealed his abdominal cavity and regrew skin, muscle, and nerves. He pushed to his feet.
Gabrielle’s eyes jumped to him. She sheathed her blade, sprinted over, and gave him a momentary crushing hug. “That was a bit too gory for my tastes.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
She gave him an unreadable expression for a moment, then a thumbs-up. “Kay.” She giggled. “We’re gonna have a pretty spider pet now!”
“Yeah, let’s put the head in the tomb for now.”
“For now?”
“Unless you want to stay up all night taming it.”
Skylar added from afar, “I was about to say!”
Gabrielle poked Rowan’s nose with a transparent finger. “Silly. You’re an Enchanter. Brand it.”
For once, he had read about this on the forums. “Slave enchantments are a max-level thing.”
“Oh.” She looked down a second. “I knew that.”
“We’ll do it in the morning.”
“Kay,” she said sadly.
He sauntered toward the Elves, a pleased expression donned. He caught their attention with a whistle. “Good job, everyone!”
Liluth said, “I have never experience a battle first-hand. My heart was jumping out of my mouth every second!” She laughed.
Good to see she was lively again. Rowan returned the smile. “You make a great healer. I’m glad you decided to join in.”
She said after a moment, “Only because I want portion of the loot.”
“Naturally.”
“Naturally,” Gabrielle mimicked, plucking the loot gems off the ground.
Rowan moved onto Zaine. “You fought decisively. Excellent work as always.”
“I do try my best.”
“Good. Keep it up, and you might just be our champion.” Rowan moved onto Luthias.
Luthias, who was waiting for another cast of Healing Light, which had an absurd forty second cooldown. His shoulder wound was going to need a regrow. His bucket helmet hid his pain well.
Rowan asked, “How’s it going?”
“Quite well. I cannot feel anything right of my collarbone.”
“You did well—as usual. I’m not sure if you remember, but like I said, if you need anything, let me know. I’m a fair ruler.”
“I remember.” Luthias smirked. “You had proclaimed yourself fair on many occasions.”
“I know, right?” Gabrielle giggled.
Rowan’s arms spread wide, palms open. “Have I not been fair?”
“You,” Luthias said, “are only at the very beginning of your ambitions. Only time will reveal your true character. I shall reserve judgment.”
Annoyance ticked in Rowan’s cheek. “What about Gab’s character?”
“I feel it in my very being that she is not a Demon at heart.”
“Awwww. How nice of ya!” Gabrielle cooed. “I’ll remember to bake ya some cookies.”
“I do like cookies.” Luthias flashed a suave grin.
Rowan wasn’t going to argue with naivety. He moved onto Skylar, who was… staring off into space. “Yo. What’s up? You did great back there. Want a DPS spot in my future dungeon and raiding party?”
Those tired Elven eyes blinked. “Yeah, sure.” He yawned. “Was just talking to Viola. She ran into some mutant wolves.”
A touch of unfounded worry curled in Rowan’s stomach.
Before he could speak, Gabrielle said, “Some wolves? I’d be let down if she couldn’t handle that.”
Skylar’s eyebrows shrugged. “She’s fine. We got some wolf pelts now.”
“Dibs! I want some wolf mitts and slippers!” Gabrielle’s hands clapped together. “Now for the loot sweet loot!” She unveiled all three simultaneously.
Three description pop ups appeared.
Silver Coin (3)
- - - - -
Enchanted Onyx Silver Tiara of Luck, Agility, and Tempered Mind
Type: Accessory (head)
Quality: 652 (Excellent)
+14 Luck (Enchantment Quality: 736)
+17 Agility (Enchantment Quality: 865)
Tempered Mind: You are immune to Taunt, Fear, and Rage debuffs.
- - - - -
Steel Ring
Type: Accessory (ring)
Quality 302 (Normal)
It was as though all her Luck points had went into the second gem.
Gabrielle placed the tiara on her head. It magically stayed despite a gust of wind ruffling her hair. “How do I look?”
“Beautiful.” Rowan took a screenshot. “See for yourself. Plopbox.”
“Hmmm…. Pretty good!”
“I wanted the tiara,” Liluth whined.
“Maybe next time. Ya have can the Steel Ring though.”
“No, thank you.”
“I’ll take it,” Skylar said.
Gabrielle tossed.
“Oh, I thought it had some stats.”
“Hehehe.”
Despite the extreme violence of this game, it did feel like a game after all was said and done with these randomly generated items at the end of a tough encounter. Rowan, for once, did not feel like watching the world burn. He was living the life in virtual reality, watching spiders burn instead.
54
The first snowflakes fell, landing on Rowan’s helmet and melting into bitter drops ripe with dark mana. If this was mid-autumn, then winter was going to be something out of the frozen pits of Hell.
Whose idea was it to settle here?
Nevermind that; there was work to do—even now hours before dawn. Rowan stood at a dirt clearing outside the palisade with the Spider Queen’s head resting on a stump. The shape was roughly that of an egg, thinner than an egg, angular like its weirdly triangular body had been. Its dozen eyes were in two starry clumps above retractable fangs and a typical mouth.
Best of all, unlike that previous grotesque form, its appearance was very aesthetic. Pretty, as Gabrielle would say. Even cartoonish if one were to squint. Its adamantite exoskeleton lacked hairs and was matte smooth with a very slight polish. But the makeover was only skin deep. When Skylar had butchered the body, the usual gunky organs and muscles came out of its shell. Luthias had evaluated the exoskeleton at half an adamantite ingot.
Not bad. These could be farmed.
Gabrielle shuffled closer. Her lamp of white mana shook in the action. “Watcha waiting for?”
“Do you think this is its final form?”
“Nope.” Her voice was confident.
“How do you know?”
“I know it my heart,” she said dramatically. “Now, please, get on with it before your wife freezes to death!”
She had a point. Just one.
Chuckling in tune with the other adventurers, he retrieved a Slave Enchantment Runestone from the Pig Leather Pouch at his hip. Five runes were engraved onto one face, four which he did not recognize. The one in the middle was BND,
the rune for binding, which could help stabilize an otherwise unstable enchantment.
A projected intention and a push of mana through his finger activated the enchantment. The runes gave off a black miasma of a texture not too dissimilar to Gabrielle’s Shroud. The dark magic pulsated and spread across the cube’s surface in a web of veins until the Stone was consumed, melting then gathering a blob.
Black liquid shot at the Spider Queen’s head, at the center of that dome cranium, printing the slave brand.
Gabrielle bounced on the balls of her feet. “Hurry up.”
Ayla cut in: “I have to log out again in fifteen minutes. Sorry.” Her long hair fluttered in the breeze much like a flame.
“Again?”
“Yes, again.”
“And miss out on the best part?” Rowan asked with a cocky grin.
She only glared at him with narrowed eyes, and he still couldn’t believe she had agreed.
“Row,” Gabrielle said, poking his rib. “One, dun’ get any pervy ideas. Two, hurry up!”
Skylar yawned. “Ye, when can we go back to sleep? The sun’s not even up.”
And Tasha was not pleased either. “You’re scared, aren’t you? I can do it for you.”
“Tch. Not scared.” He swallowed his grin and placed the head on the ground next to the Soul Crystal, which was also pulsing like a heart. Many things, Rowan mused, in the game pulsed like hearts. Well, not really. He couldn’t name more than three in his state of minor sleep deprivation, which was only simulated for those in VR pods, he remembered. A wafting yawn pried open his mouth.
Gabrielle’s tongue clicked. “I’ve got it.” She hopped, crouched, and poked the Soul Crystal with her pinky finger flush with dark mana. It activated with a sustained neon-blue flash.
The light seared Rowan’s eyes before he ripped his gaze away, inflicting Blind for seven seconds, and after the eighth second, a slave thread, far thicker than the Elves’, was woven from a combination of his mana and the spider’s.
Then the Spider Queen heave, and the thread was moments from snapping when he instinctively overpowered its will and forced those bladed claws into submission. Its eyes all closed in unison. It was afraid, angry, violated. Good. After all the stress and nightmares it had wrought on him, it deserved some punishment.
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