The cave wound its way ever downward and after a few minutes of walking they stopped. "How long should we wait before we go back up?" Celeste asked. 

Before he could answer the whole cave system began to shake violently. A loud crash could be heard off in the direction they had come from and then the shaking stopped. They went back as quickly as they could and saw that the cave had collapsed not far from the entrance to the cave, leaving them trapped. "What the hell was that? Is fate just fucking with me at this point?" he ground his teeth.

"Orlean did this. I'm sure of it," Celeste whispered. "He is one of the most terrifying of the Emperor's elite warriors. It is said that he felled an entire army on his own once. His skill in combat is legendary. Every schoolchild knows the tales of his exploits. His weapon, the Megaton Hammer, is affixed with a magical stone that gives him power over the very ground we stand upon." she shuddered.

"Well... I'm glad we didn't run straight into that guy, then. Either way though, we're screwed unless there is some other way out of here. There's no way we'll be able to move all those boulders. Let's keep going."

He drew his sword again and stayed toward the front as she held up her moss lantern from behind. After several minutes of crawling and climbing over rock the cave opened up into a wider cavern system. This place is huge. It must run all over underneath this forest. Gigantic tree roots hung down along the walls of the large chamber. Until now, they hadn't seen any of that amber-like substance, but his hopes of being completely free of the stuff were dashed when he looked up and saw that there was a huge glob of the stuff stuck to the ceiling. 

He poked Celeste in the shoulder and pointed toward the ceiling. She nodded silently and they wound their way around the large area to a spot where the cavern forked off into two different directions. Great. Which way do we go? I guess it should depend on how much of that amber is around. He tugged Celeste to the left so that he could see down that branch a short distance. There didn't appear to be any of the deadly parasitic substance that he could see, but he wanted to check the other path as well. 

The second pathway was narrower and he saw some of the amber along the walls in patches. More importantly though, he could hear a scraping noise far off in the distance. Nope. Not gonna do it. 

"Let's go to the left. There's something moving down that way," he whispered.

"Okay. This place is terrifying... I just want to get out of here." She moved closer to him and continued to slowly move forward. The pathway they had chosen stayed wide and easy to navigate for several minutes. Unfortunately, their progress ended when they came up against a dead end. A tangle of thick tree roots blocked the entire passageway. To make matters, worse, he could hear that scratching noise again from behind.

"Celeste. Get behind me." 

"What is it?" she said with a bit of a trembling in her voice. She complied before he answered and switched places with him; her back was now firmly against the roots of the tree. 

"I don't know. There's something coming though. It's going to be trouble." There was just enough room to either side of him to be able to swing his sword at least. He pulled his weapon free of its scabbard and stood ready. The scratching noise got louder and he could her what sounded like multiple hard feet moving across the floor. Please, just for once, give me a freaking break. 

Seconds later it came into view. The thing was pretty much exactly what he feared it could be; a gigantic orange and black spider-like monster. It looked like something straight out of his nightmares. It had 8 sharp looking legs made of sturdy-looking carapace and sharp looking mandibles. It was roughly the size of a saint bernard. It let out a screech when it caught sight of him with its dozen or so eyes. He had always been absolutely terrified of  spiders, and that was when they were small enough to smash with a shoe or something. Celeste let out a gasp from behind him and he realized he had pressed himself back against her as far as he could go; he would have to face his fears. 

Man up, Yukito. It's time to be the hero of your own story. The arachnid lunged toward them and he slowed time down. To his surprise, it had been spitting something at them; it was the amber! Even though time had slowed to a crawl the glob of stuff was steadily moving through the air toward his head; it must have been travelling at an incredible rate. He grabbed Celeste and shoved her against the wall to his right and then ducked out of the way as it went by and slammed into the roots where they had been standing. He had wasted precious seconds dodging the attack and needed to move. He ran forward and stabbed the thing through its many eyes. Yellow liquid spurted out and he was able to pull back and get away before any got on him. Not sure if this would work or not, he tried to deactivate his ability; it worked. He didn't need to use the entire allotted time at once. He tried activating it again and to his delight, it worked. He only wasted about a second before deactivating it again. It was unclear if he could stack extra time or not, but he didn't think so.  

The arachnid continued spurting yellow blood as it died and fell to the ground in a pool of goop. He examined his blade and was glad to see that the blood wasn't the same stuff as the amber it had spat at them at the beginning of the encounter. He had been in slow motion for just under fifteen seconds total and it was reassuring that he would have a few seconds saved up in case they needed his power again before the time reset. If only we could catch a breath for a bit so I could experiment and figure out exactly how this works. 

"Are you okay, Celeste? Did any get on you?" 

Celeste looked herself over briefly before shaking her head. "I'm fine. I've never heard of such a beast existing in this forest. Maybe anyone who has ever seen one has never lived to tell the tale?"

"It doesn't matter. All that matters is that we get the fuck out of here." Yukito didn't like the idea of back tracking to the corridor that this thing had clearly come from. By his logic, if there was one of those things down there, then it would be likely that there would more. He discovered a possible solution to this dilemma when he squatted down to examine the slain arachnid. The front legs of the creature were serrated like a saw blade. Maybe I can use this. 

He hacked the limb off of the thing and held it up. "I'm going to saw through those roots. Keep watch behind us, okay? We just need a hole small enough for us to fit through. Luckily the amber that the arachnid had spit at them hit up high on the root system and hadn't spread too far yet. He gripped his make-shift saw in both hands and went to work on the bottom right side of the tangle of thick roots. It worked surprisingly well and after just a couple minutes he had created a small pathway for them to squeeze through. 

"Worked like a charm! Let's go, Celeste. You want to go first, or me?"

She fixed him with a stare and seemed to be weighing out her options for a long moment before answering. "You go first."

"Okay. Here goes nothing." He got down on his hands and knees and squeezed through the small space he had created. There were still tiny roots shooting off here and there that he had missed, but they were small enough that he could push his way through. After crawling for a few feet he was to the other side and could stand up again. There wasn't enough light for him to see very far, even with his enhanced vision, but he could see that the passageway widened up ahead. 

"It looks like it's safe over here. Come on through." 

A few moments later Celeste was now on the other side with him. "I hate small spaces..." she admitted. "I just want to get out of this place, it's terrible down here."

"I'm with you on that. I hate being down here in the dark. By the way, how long will that moss last for?"

"It will continue to glow for a long while still. It can be recharged in direct sunlight if we ever get outside of this place."

At least we won't be running out of light anytime soon. That's a plus at least. "Just hang in there. I'll keep us safe," he said trying to project a sense of confidence. The two of them went into the next room which was another large chamber. No sign of bug monsters, so I’ll take this as a win so far. 

The chamber contained a small spring which ran down from one of the walls and lead down a small passageway. “If we follow the water, we might be able to find a way out,” he suggested. There were two other passageways that they could try if that one didn’t pan out, but he had a good feeling about this idea.

Celeste agreed with his logic and they set off following the small stream of water. The passage got narrower and narrower, to the point that they would need to crawl soon, but he thought he could see the faintest source of light ahead. We’re almost out of this hellhole! he thought excitedly. Yukito crawled as quickly as he could through the low hanging corridor and when his head popped out the other side he saw that the stream lead into a small underground pond and that there was a small cliff face on one side of it that lead to a giant crack where sunlight streamed in from outside.

He climbed out and waited for Celeste to reach the other side as well. "I think we're home free," he whispered to her when she emerged. "Let's get out of here." He took a few steps forward and once he exited the small alcove his heart sank as he was now able to see the rest of the room.

Corpses of various large animals and even a few humans encased in amber littered the floor and hung from the ceiling. There were five more of the spider things and they were dragging some human corpses encased in amber over toward a monstrous beast. It resembled the smaller arachnids, but its coloring was different; red and green. Other than that, it was nearly five times larger than its smaller kin. Yukito stepped back into the hidden alcove as quickly as he could, bumping into Celeste. She opened her mouth to say something, but he clamped his hand hard over her mouth. 

"More monsters. Huge one." he whispered into her ear. What the hell are we going to do? I'll need a lot more than 30 seconds to fight those things. The big one looks even deadlier than the chimera. I have to assume all of them can spit the amber substance at me as well. 

Yukito knew that he needed to think of something and the sooner the better. It was only a matter of time before one of those things saw them and they'd be trapped in this alcove if they did. It was worth considering that they should backtrack and try one of the other corridors, but there was no guarantee that they wouldn't be dead ends that wouldn't lead to the surface. Outside is right there! Damn it! Think, dumb-ass! There has to be a way.

If nobody had ever heard of these creatures before, then maybe they were nocturnal. He considered the strategy of running for the exit. The creatures were way across the large cavern, but they were pretty fast and he had no idea what type of capabilities that large one had. If I slow time and carry Celeste, maybe we can get to the exit just in time. That's our best shot I think. I can't just decide this without her though. 

"I can try slowing time and get us to the exit. Or do you think we should go back and try another way?" he whispered as softly as he could directly into her ear. 

He held his ear next to her mouth to await her reply. She took a few seconds, but then she said, "I want out of here. I trust in your abilities."

"We need to sneak as close as we can to that ledge leading up to the outside before I slow the passage of time." 

Celeste merely nodded and they inched their way around the alcove, hugging the wall. Yukito felt as though his heart was going to leap out of his throat, thankfully they hadn't been seen so far, but he wasn't going to let false hope keep him from facing the very real possibility that they would die right here and now.

They made it to the first ledge, which was waist high and he helped Celeste up. She quietly got to her feet again once she was atop the rock and was reaching for the next ledge when the arachnids finally noticed them and they all let out that screeching noise. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! he thought as the creatures began charging towards them. Two of them went straight up the wall and onto the ceiling, charging straight for them. The huge one stayed in place with the other three of the creatures which appeared to be standing guard. 

Yukito didn't waste another second and activated his ability. Time slowed to a crawl and the room got quiet. The arachnids were still a good distance away and he shoved Celeste up onto the second ledge before climbing up himself. They were at the exit. He grabbed her in his arms and tossed her through the crack. She moved slowly through the air after she left his hands, he crawled underneath her and then caught her while she was still mid-air and then proceeded to run. 7 seconds left! Go! 

He ran as fast as he could while making sure to avoid the amber substance that covered nearly everything in this area. When time returned to normal speed he still didn't take the time to put Celeste down. He just kept running. The loud sounds of angry monsters resounded in the distance behind him. He had absolutely no intentions of finding out if his theory about them avoiding sunlight were true or not. 

After a couple minutes of running at a breakneck pace he put Celeste down and bent over panting and wheezing, trying to catch his breath. 

"Behind you! They're coming!" Celeste yelled. 

Yukito turned to see two of the beasts lumbering towards them at a moderate pace. They seemed to be burning in the daylight. Their carapaces sizzled and smoked whenever the light touched them through the canopy. Thankfully, only the two that had been on the ceiling were pursuing them and at least he could fight out here in the open, especially since they were injured. 

Pure rage must've drove those things to follow them outside in the daylight. The big one must've been their queen or something. He readied himself for combat. "Celeste, don't let them spray you with that amber. Just stay back and run away without me if I fall. I'm going to try to fight."

"We should keep running!" Celeste pleaded.

"I'm too exhausted and these things are determined to kill us. If I use all my energy running, when they catch us I won't have the strength to fight. I have to make my stand here."

The arachnids were only about 20 paces away at this point. He sprang into motion and tried to run wide towards the things. The closest one was a few paces ahead of the other one which seemed to be suffering from far more burns. The one in the front turned to watch him as he circled around and spat several globs of amber in his direction. It was a pretty good shot and only missed him by a hair on more than one occasion.

He charged in from the side at full speed with his weapon held high and brought a heavy blow down onto the back of the monster. His blade sunk into the creature and yellow blood sprayed out towards him. He turned toward the second creature which was now closing in and rolled to the side just as a ball of the amber shot toward him. It missed by a large margin and hit its companion instead. The arachnids weren't immune to the stuff apparently, as the amber quickly spread across the body, consuming it. 

Yukito didn't waste any time he tried to attack the creature from the side but it turned and slashed at him with its serrated front leg. It managed to land a blow right across the side of his torso. He felt the trickle of warm blood and a searing pain as the arachnid's leg tore through him. He managed a counter strike with his blade, slashing off one of the creature's 8 legs. 

Yellow blood spurted out, but the thing was far from immobilized. It reared back and tried to get him with both of its front legs, but he rolled to the side and came up swinging. His sword took two more of the legs off the same side and the monster flopped to the ground scratching and clawing. He sliced off more of the creature's legs before delivered the coup de grace to the its head. Exhasuted, he sat down holding his hand firmly against his injured side. 

"Don't suppose you have any more of that healing salve, do you, Celeste?" he asked as she came running over. 

She shook her head. And then bent down to look him over. When she pulled up his tattered shirt he saw that he had a large gash along the lower edge of his rib cage. Blood was coming out but not at a fast rate. She cut a long strip of fabric off of her cloak and wrapped it around his middle. "This is the best I can do for now."

"Thanks. Any idea where we are?" he looked around anxiously and saw that the sun was in a late afternoon position. We were stuck down there almost the whole day. I definitely don't want to be around here when the sun goes down. He spared a glance in the direction of the cave. 

"I'm... not sure. I do know that we need to be heading west to get out of the forest and to the town of Barebury. It lies just on the edge of the forest. If we follow the sun... then maybe we can get back to the road and out of here before nightfall."

"Sounds like a plan to me," he grunted as he got back up to his feet. The two of them began their journey westward and hopefully to the safety of Barebury.