As Siofra neared the closest spider, Altira let off another volley of arrows and hit it with a bang. The creature was stunned enough that Siofra could get close without resistance. She brought her axe down on the spider’s leg, hitting the lowest joint with a clang. At first it sounded as if the axe was repelled, but it had sunk deep into the joint.

The spider turned and dived headfirst at Siofra, but she was quick enough to avoid it and moved to safety as Altria covered her with arrows. The exploding fire arrows were doing a good job at keeping the spiders at bay. They weren’t dealing them with life threating damage, but for now they were halting their progress.

At the same time, Serin and I felled the last of the skeleton warriors. As I crushed the last core Serin called out to me.

“Theo, stay back with Lillia!”

“Okay.” I replied.

“Lillia, can you use bind?” Serin asked.

“Yes, I can.”

“Hold the one farthest away for me. I’ll let Siofra and Altria take the closest one.”

“You’ve got it.”

Serin ran at full speed towards the second spider, the first was too wrapped up in its battle with Siofra to take notice. As she did roots shot up from the ground and the side of the cavern, wrapping themselves around the creature’s legs and holding it tight. The creature flailed and tried to break free, but it just didn’t have the brute force to do so. Even more roots shot down from the ceiling and begun wrapping themselves around its body, leaving it completely pinned.

As Serin reached the spider, she dove under its legs still running at full speed. She was frantically stabbing the creature’s soft abdomen as she went. Black blood poured from each of the wounds as the spider madly tried to escape its bindings. A moment later Serin reappeared from under it, spattered in the dark spider blood.

“Drop the ceiling roots!” Serin yelled out.

The roots started disintegrating and the spider crashed heavily onto the floor. It seemed weakened unable to lift its body off the ground as blood still oozed out from underneath, yet it still struggled against its bindings. As it lay there struggling, Serin went back in for the kill, paying attention to its legs as she went. She worked her way around to the head and begun plunging her rapier deep into its eyes one after the other.

The thing was probably dead after the first two or three eyes were skewered, but Serin didn’t stop until she had poked out all eight of them. Once she was done, she flung the filthy spider blood from her blade and turned back to the first spider that Siofra and Altria were still facing.

Siofra had spent the entire time in a deadly battle with the monster. Back and forth in between Altria’s exploding flame arrows. She had managed to seriously damage three of its legs in this time, but five remained and the creature was still mobile. As Serin moved to join the fray with them Altria fired another volley, scoring a direct hit to an eye and blasting a small hole in its head. Siofra moved in and took out another leg with a clang. With only half of its legs remaining the creature was now brought to the ground.

Siofra had jumped clear of the creature as it fell and moved back in to finish it off. She brought her axe down on its head with a clang so loud the whole cave rang out with the sound. It still was enough to break through its exoskeleton, but by now Serin had joined in and during the confusion had drove her rapier deep into the closest eye socket. The dark spiders blood pouring out of the hole as she removed it.

Siofra’s axe fell on the creature’s head, the blow was even harder than the last and must have contained all her might. She hit the exact same spot as before and this time it penetrated, with most of the axe’s head being forced into its body. It was the death blow, its legs giving the last twitches of life before it fell still.

We all breathed a sigh of relief as we had defeated the first wave of enemies we had encountered in this section. We couldn’t let our guard down though, as there was no telling what else could come out of the darkness, before we made it to the safe zone.

“Is anyone hurt?” Asked Lillia realising the fight was won.

“All good here.” Serin said as she walked back our way.

“Not even a scratch.” Declared Siofra.

“Nothing to worry about.” Said Altria.

“I came out of this one unscathed.” I reassured her.

“That’s a relief. Then we should get ready to continue.” Lillia said seeing there were no injuries amongst the party.

Out of all of us it was Lillia that had come the closest to taking damage when she was hit by the spider’s web.

As we prepared to move on Lillia and Altria both quickly downed mana potions after both using up significant amounts in the last fight. Once they had finished, we moved on. Staying put for any length of time was only going to increase the danger for us. As we moved, we regained the usual formation with Altria and Siofra taking the front.

“Were you expecting to face something that hard yet?” I asked Serin as we moved even deeper into the cavern.

“No, but I’m not surprised. It hasn’t exactly gone as Siofra expected so far and anything could be down here. This place has been left alone for years.” She replied.

“Are we going to be okay here?”

“We’ll be fine. They were big, but we can handle worse. Don’t worry, just stay focused on the task at hand.”

“Right.”

We crept deeper into the darkness at a decent pace. We had been walking for about five minutes when the cave changed from the vast cavernous space it had been, to something that resembled a large passageway. Once we had all stepped inside the new section Siofra suggested we stop for a while.

“Lillia, we’ve made it to the first safe zone. Should we take a short break?”

“This is the safe zone already? I was expecting us to encounter more enemies.” Responded Lillia.

“I was expecting us to encounter more, but then I wasn’t expecting us to encounter those spiders here either.”

“Hmm… Well, if we are at the safe zone then we should probably take advantage and rest for a few minutes. We don’t know what we’ll face in the next chamber. Let’s make sure we can safely make it through the next chamber by tonight.”

No one complained at the chance to take a short break, we had been travelling and fighting for the entire day. I don’t think there was a single member of the party that wasn’t fatigued by now. I slung off my bag and sat down with my back up against the cold cave wall. Serin came and sat down next to me.

“How are you holding up?” She asked as she sat.

“I’m fine, but I can’t say I won’t be glad when we reach the end of the next chamber and stop for the day.” I replied.

“I think we all be glad to stop.” She said with a little sigh before taking a sip of water.

I looked over the party as everyone sat for a moment. Everyone looked tired, I just hoped we would have enough left in us to make it to the end. I must have had the easiest time out the group and I was still knackered. The others had all expended significantly more energy fighting the higher level monsters. I know they were much higher ranking than I was, but I was still concerned what was going to happen if we had another run in like that in the next chamber.

After we had been sat down for about ten minutes Lillia got to her feet and started gathering her equipment. Seeing this, the rest of us started doing the same. We all knew it was time to move on.

“Let’s move on.” Lillia said seeing that we were all ready to move. “Just one more section to clear before we stop for the day. Let’s make this quick.” She added.

It wasn’t an inspiring speech or anything, but we could all tell she was trying to lift our moral and some of the lethargy that had fallen on the group. As we all knew the sentiment, her words had the desired effect and we all set off with a renewed effort to make it to the next safe zone.

The tunnel like section carried on winding onwards and down for about two hundred meters until we exited into the next cavernous chamber.