The Land: Catacombs (Chaos Seeds Book 4) (41 page)

*
Base Values not adjusted for Characteristics or War Leader bonus

**Cumulative Armor Base Value not adjusted for Characteristics.  Damage will only be calculated based upon the specific armor piece struck. 

Yup, Richter thought, we are some bad hombres.  He noticed that the challenge had been added to the top of the page.  He intended to conquer that task or die trying. 

For the first fifteen minutes, they jogged through the woods, Richter and Sion leading the way.  The overall speed of the party was limited to their slowest member, Caulder, so the two Companions ranged ahead.  At first they didn’t find anything more dangerous than a wolf or bear track, but then Sion froze.  Richter silently made his way over to his friend and examined what he was looking at.  At the sprite’s feet was a trail that looked like a broad ribbon on the ground.  Sion made eye contact and said, “Shale adder.”

The other members of their party caught up and Sion explained what they were facing. “These things are big.  At least ten feet long, often up to twenty.”

“Okay, so what else?” Richter asked.  “Does it spit acid, mesmerize us with it gaze, fart poison?”

“No,” Sion said, shaking his head, “but it’s big, fast, and camouflages itself well.  Very well.”

Richter raised his head as the others approached. “Okay.  We have our first customer of the day.  Sion says it’s a big ass snake called a shale adder.”

Everyone nodded, except for Ulinde who asked, “How big?”

“At least twenty feet,” Sion answered.  The elf blanched slightly, but nodded. 

“We move forward together now.  Tight formation.  Caulder, bring that slab of metal up here.  You’re right behind me and Sion.  Beyan and Jean, you’re in the middle.  Let’s move.”

Haste I
was rebuffed and they got back to it.  Richter and Sion kept one eye on the ground and the other on the surrounding trees.  The sprite had told them that the adders liked to strike prey from above.  They moved slowly through the thick trees, making far too much noise for Richter’s liking, but he knew it couldn’t be helped.  Most of the other party members were just lacking in stealth or wood craft.  The trail started leading them north. 

The war party slowly jogged on following the slithering tracks.  Almost an hour later, they found a splash of red blood.  Not too much, but still enough for them all to go on high alert.  After a minute when nothing else happened, Sion and Richter fanned out and found a blood trail that continued to follow the path of the snake.  The strange part was that the sinuous trail was fainter than it had been before the blood.  

“If the snake killed something and carried it off, wouldn’t it be heavier?  I mean wouldn’t the tracks be deeper and easier to follow?” Richter asked.  Sion nodded.  “Then what’s with this?”  Sion just looked back and shrugged. 

Having nothing else to go on, they kept moving forward.  Ten minutes later, the trail ended at a hole in the side of a small hill.  Richter never would have seen it if they hadn’t been following the snake’s trail.  The entrance was on the far side of the hill and covered by thick bracken.  After they had chopped through the briar, it was clear that they had found a lair. 

The bones and remains of animals both large and small littered the ground around the cave.  What was even more concerning, was that as they had cut their way closer to the cave entrance, they had started seeing webbing as well.  Standing in front of the cave, Richter turned to Sion. “I don’t suppose that this is a special type of snake that makes webs?”

Sion slowly shook his head while keeping his eye on the cave.

Richter turned back to the cave with a grim expression on his face.  “That’s what I thought.  Fuck.  I
hate
spiders.”

He had Futen turn invisible and then scout inside.  The remnant came back a few seconds later reporting a large cavern filled with webs.  He could not go any further without disturbing the white strands.  Richter nodded and placed his bow back into his Bag, drawing his short sword instead.  Underground, it would probably come to some close quarters work.  The green blade made a
shing
sound as it cleared his back scabbard.  He waved Caulder to the front of the group and they filed into the dark, one at a time. 

As soon as they were underground, Richter cast
Far Light I
several times.  The slope leading into the cave had been somewhat steep, and they went down about fifteen feet before reaching the earthen floor.  Loose and stringy roots hung down above their heads and larger roots interwove through the ceiling and walls.  More webs were strewn across the room, making moving forward impossible.  Sedrin tried cutting through the webbing with his dagger, but the stuff was thick and somewhat sticky.  It quickly clung to his blade, like tape on scissors, forcing the guard to stop and peel it away.  To make matters worse, the webbing numbed any exposed skin it touched.  It wasn’t a problem for those of them wearing gauntlets, but the webs still stuck to the armor in the most irritating way.  Terrod’s cobalt sword was able to cut through well enough, and the threads fell right away from Richter’s elementum blade, but it was still taking too long. 

“Stand back and be ready,” he told everyone.

Richter began casting with both hands.  He didn’t dual cast this time.  Instead, he cast
Flame I
twice.  Twin jets of fire lanced out from his hands, severing and burning the webs in front of them.  The cauterized ends of the white strands snapped back under pressure, sending reverberations through the web.  His flames revealed a doorway to the far left; the blood trail continued on in that direction. 

They were about to go through, when Richter heard something. 
Click, click.  Click, click. 
They all stopped and listened.  The noises started coming faster and closer together and it soon became clear that more than one creature was making the noises.  Noises that were getting closer.  They all shared a look and then Richter shouted, “Back up to the entrance and get ready!” 

Richter cast
Grease I
in front of the doorway and then hastened to rejoin his party.  They moved back, always facing towards the deeper part of the cave.  The clicking grew louder and louder.  Richter began casting buffs,
Barkskin I
and
Minor Life Armor I.
  Before he could do anything else, the doorway leading deeper into the cave exploded with black spiders. 

Each was about the size of a German shepherd.  Their bodies were long like a wolf spider’s, and two clusters of red eyes sat above slavering mandibles.  Clear spittle dripped from their mouths and several thorn-like teeth lined the top and bottom of their jaws.  Their mandibles were to either side of their mouths, like pincers.  The clicking came from them snapping together again and again.  The ends of their legs were sharp like pins, easily digging into the floor and walls as they boiled out of the entire circumference of the hole.  They climbed on the walls, the ceiling, and the floor.  First one, then five, then more than a dozen ran into the room. 

Richter quickly
Analyzed
one. 

As soon as Sion saw them, he shouted, “Spear spiders!” and began loosing arrows into the creatures. 

Richter watched, hoping to see the ones on the floor slip in the grease, but their eight legs and the fact that each ended in a sharp point was enough to keep them upright.  Gritting his teeth, he thought, *
Psi Blast!
*

Alma let loose a cry and then flew forward several yards.  When all of the members of the war party were clear of her mental blast, she unleashed her devastating psychic attack.  She chose to narrow the beam in the confined space of the cave, still striking all of the spiders that had made it past the doorway.  The assengai fell to the ground twitching.  Sion and Ulinde wasted no time peppering the fallen spiders with arrows.  More continued to pour from the opening, with no concern for their fallen.  One was even in such a rush that its sharp legs pierced the abdomen of a fallen spider, sending green ichor spraying as it ran past.

Richter pointed his Ring of Spell Storage and released the spell.  A green disc phased into being, but Richter didn’t waste any time watching the saproling be summoned.  The first spiders had reached the party and they were slamming their sharpened legs against Caulder’s heavy shield.  The
ting ting ting
sound left no doubt as to how strong and dangerous the spiders’ attacks were.  Knowing they needed time, he cast a spell he had never tried before.  Both hands wove through a slow, but exacting, series of movements.  A cry of pain threatened to undo his concentration, but the fact that spiders continued to pour into the room firmed his will.  Words of Power poured out of his mouth, getting thicker and harder to say, but since Alma’s
Psi Bond
had leveled up, his ability to focus had deepened.  Three seconds after he started, he finished the spell with a shout and wrenched his hands down in a slashing motion.  For the first time he saw the power of
Rending Talons I. 

The entire area in front of the hole the spiders were coming out of became a spinning maelstrom of talons and hooked nails.  They randomly spun around the space at high speeds, scoring against anything they could touch.  The talons weren’t strong enough to do more than score the spiders’ armor at first, but they moved with increasing speed and soon green gore was flying. 

Caulder and Terrod stood side by side, fending off the attacks of the spiders that were already beyond the AoE of Richter’s spell.  Their attacks complemented one another as Terrod held his shield in his right hand and Caulder held the war door in his left.  Caulder stood slightly forward, taking the brunt of the attacks.  The cry of pain had come from Terrod, and blood leaked down his leg from a puncture mark, but a dead spider now lay at his feet, neatly bisected.  Sedrin stood behind them both.  The longer reach of his weapon let him jab the spear forward whenever a spider tried to get past his fellow guards’ blades.  The creamy white spearhead already dripped green.

Sion and Ulinde stood several feet back from the guards, flanking them and forming the two bottom points of the party’s triangle formation.  They shot as quickly as they could, each arrow causing frost to spread from the impact point.  Occasionally spiders were knocked back by a heavy arrow connecting.  They would always regain their feet, though, and surge forward again.  The space was too small for Sion to use imbue arrow, but his shots still struck with devastating force and accuracy.  From the center of the formation, Jean added to the ranged attacks with shots from his wand.  There was a slight
bzzzt
as each black bolt left the wand.  Krom stood near the center of the formation, ranging left or right whenever a spider attempted to sidle past Terrod or Caulder’s shields.  Beyan’s contribution was seen in a reanimated spider attacking its former compatriots. 

As Richter had been casting
Rending Talons I,
the saproling had crossed into the cavern.  This time, the saproling took the form of a six-footed pit bull, comprised of roots and thorns.  It stood four feet tall at the shoulder and had an oversized head.  Its mouth was full of sharp thorns that oozed a green poison of some type.  It dove into the spiders with gusto, not at all minding that it was outsized and vastly outnumbered.  The spiders attacked it with their needle-like legs and powerful bites, but the tough wood that made up its body was highly resistant to piercing attacks.  The Earth creature also drew strength from being underground, surrounded by the roots of mighty trees.  It drew energy through its legs and it was able to self-heal some of the damage it suffered. 

The spiders started falling one after another.  To Richter’s surprise, rainbows of light traced through the cavern with each one’s passing.  He looked over and saw Alma weaving through the cavern, casting
Soul Trap
on any spider that looked to be near death.  The mana expenditure was significant, but at level twenty-four and with the 60% bump to her Intelligence, she had almost five hundred and fifty mana to draw on.  The dragonling had become a force to be reckoned with.