The party was all waiting for me in the Adventurer’s Guild. I wondered if anyone had recognised her.

  They hadn’t. And she hadn’t noticed. Then again when I was playing a game would I have noticed if NPCs at a random location remembered me if it wasn’t part of a quest or interaction of some kind? Unlikely.

  It was decided that we would all sleep, which to them took less than a minute in real time. So we could head off in in the morning. I wasn’t sure why this mattered. The dungeon was dark day or night.

  I wasn’t wearing my nice new shirt as we crossed the threshold. I wondered if I could give it to one of these guys. If they died, it should come back. But would they want to hold a shirt? It didn’t even have any stats to speak of.

  “Are you going to stick around for the whole thing this time?” I quietly but pointedly asked Ayerelia as we prepared to face the rats. She just glared at me.

  At least there were no NPCs this time to lose their lives for real.

  Dekka was actually whining in anticipation and had transformed into her shadow beast form at the first scratching sounds.

  The rats were barely a hindrance this time around. Ayerelia didn’t need to do any healing and got to try a her new offensive skill [blind] this time only blinding the rats who panicked and were easily picked off. I didn’t need to use any of my skills, my strength was enough I could one shot them.

  The only downside was now that I was a higher level the rats weren’t worth nearly as much only 7XP each.

  My stomach clenched and I started to sweat as we approached the spider area. I noticed even Ayerelia had lost a bit of colour.

  “See those webs over there?” I pointed out to Arjun. He squinted, then nodded. “Don’t touch them. At least until we are ready.”

  We stopped at the threshold, Ayerelia’s orb of light casting harsh jagged shadows around is in the tunnel. The cavern before us swallowed all light.

  “So these things are venomous.” Copperbeard was telling Darkraven who looked sick.

  “Why does it have to be spiders?” She asked.

  “It is ok,” Arjun said to her, “I also have a fear of large spiders.”

  “Oh I am not afraid of them,” Darkraven replied. “I have a pet spiders, I used to have a tarantula but now I have a jumping spider, her name is Lady Skitterfang-“

  “Lady Skitterfang?” Arjun asked, surprised.

  “Well, really her full name is Lady Skitterfang the Great, Huntress of a Thousand jumps and Protector of the Velvet Lair.”

  Arjun seemed unsure of what to say to that.

  “So yeah I don’t like hurting spiders, they have such a bad reputation you know?” Darkraven explained.

  “These ones deserve the bad reputation,” Copperbeard said grimly.

  I nodded emphatically. These were stereotypical game monster evil spiders not a cute little spood.

  “Yeah, just wait till you meet them,” Ayerelia strode to the front of the group. “They are not like your pets.” To the group at large she said. “Are we ready?”

  After our affirmation, she cast her light orb, and she must have used a higher level or more manna or something because it was super bright. The dwarf swore at her for not warning us.

  Blinking frantically a few times, the cavern before us came into focus. The orb hovered near the ceiling high overhead. The walls were dimly lit due to the vastness of the underground

  space.

  It wasn’t long before the spiders reacted. I could hear the scratching sounds of chitin against rock and the back of my neck felt hot. The smell of this cavern even more than the sounds, shot fear into my belly. Before I had never known that spiders have a smell, but they do. It was a sour smell, slightly vinigary tinged with decay.

  Come on let’s get the fight started. I couldn’t believe it, but I wanted that confidence and rage to fill me.

  “Over there!” Yelled Arjun tension obvious in his voice. He was pointing to a shadow moving in the dark, quickly descending the wall to our left.

  “Two more over there,” Ayerelia pointed to the right where two were almost already at the floor but deeper into the dungeon.

  “We’ll take those.” I said my fingers tightening around my club and my heart beginning to pound. Dekka and I jogged off towards them. Hopefully Arjun would be ok keeping the single one busy for now.

  I put all my focus on the two spiders on the ground facing me. The weren’t rushing us. Maybe they could tell I was now a higher level, a greater threat. But neither did they back off.

  “Dekka,” I said to my hellhound shaped companion. "Keep the one closest to the wall busy. I’ll take the other one." She actually gave a little snort of acknowledgment. Yeah, my dog was no longer just a dog. At this moment that was ok though.

  I heard Arjun yell a battle cry and heard steel on carapace. Strumming started and it was then that the spider bolted towards us.

  Dekka did leap at the one closest to the wall and grabbed it by a leg. The spider bit at the creature dragging it sideways but the fangs only punctured shadow. I wondered if I should tell Dekka to be careful of the venom, but then figured that might distract her. If I could trust my terrier to do anything well it was fight.

  Then I couldn’t look anywhere by the face of death coming at me. The spider’s eyes shone in the light and its thick curved fangs gaping open and narrowing to points so sharp they were almost invisible. I froze. Those fangs, my neck. The cries of my allies..

  It was only due to my now superhuman reflexes, thank you speed stat of 9, that allowed me to get my club raised in time to block the bite. The spider’s teeth sunk into the wood of the club and I had to hang on tight as it pulled back to try again. The fang was stuck in the club, this meant it couldn’t bite me but it also meant I couldn’t hit it.

  Right now having some unarmed skills would be handy. I kicked at it but the spider, having more legs, easily avoided my clumsy attempts.

  The strumming was matched with a voice:

  “So swing the steel and let it bite,

  Oh, crack that chitin shell!

  That spider's face’s a horrid sight,

  And it’s screech a horrid yell!

  But take no heed of sight or sound,

  For we shan’t be dying underground!”

  My nerves steadied, my breath calmed though my heart still beat hard. Good bard that dwarf. I yanked my club free and used [Trip] on the spider, aiming at it’s legs. My club swept the four that were supporting the bulbous body out from under it, causing it to crash onto the stone. The two legs that had been reaching out to me tried to catch hold by they missed. As it was scrabbling to find purchase and lift itself back up I quickly used [Crippling blow] and brought my iron banded club down on it’s head.

  There was a sharp crack and a shrill scream that faded. It’s legs slowly retracted under it’s body and it became still.

  15XP!

  That didn’t seem much. But then again that was a lot easier than last time. I spun to see how Dekka was doing. She was still dragging the spider around by a middle leg, shaking and growling the whole time. Her tail wagging like this was an exciting game of tug. The spider seemed mostly uninjured, a bit of what ever it was spider’s had for blood leaking around where Dekka had a grip. Mostly it seemed furious.

  I couldn’t use Crippling blow for about 60 seconds, but I could just try brute strength. They were spinning and I didn’t want to miss and hit Dekka. Change of plans. I waited till they had spun so that the spider’s spinnerets were facing me. I used [Targeted Hit] and aimed for where the legs on the opposite side of where Dekka was met the spider’s body.

  Another, though less loud, crack. The one back leg was fully detached and the spider listed backwards as it could no longer brace itself. The other leg looked damaged; it was moving jerkily and leaking lots of fluids.

  Dekka was now making more headway in yanking the spider towards the centre of the cavern putting us directly under the orb of light.

  The spider did not look less frightening out of the shadows. It looked worse, I could see little hairs poking out of it and I could see all of it’s eyes clearly, not just the biggest two. The 4 smaller eyes gave it 360-degree vision. Not that it could use that to it’s advantage with a massive hellhound dragging it around.

  That made me wonder. How much did Dekka weigh in this form? How much mass did her shadow body have? Shadows weren’t known for their substance.

  Dekka gave an extra hard yank and the leg broke off. She did a victory lap around the creature like she had managed to get a stick and wanted it to chase her. The spider almost fell over. This was disturbing on multiple levels. I hoped the spiders weren’t sentient.

  15XP!

  Arjun must have got his spider.

  I was just looking for an opening to put this one out of it’s misery when Darkraven yelled. “Look out! Above you Elizabeth!”

  Oh fuck now what?

  I shot backwards and looked up. There was a massive spider slowly sliding down a thread that looked far to delicate to support it’s bulk. But that was not the horrifying thing.

  Once, when I was about 11 I saw a wolf spider when I was camping. I was not fond of spiders, but I wasn’t afraid of them. As long as they didn’t touch me, then all bets were off. I had watched that spider with mild interest. Camping is boring if you aren’t roasting marshmallows or swimming. Then what I had thought was just a really chunky spider turned into a less chunky spider what felt like million small versions of itself. I had ran away before any could touch me.

  That was the day I learned some spiders carry their offspring around on their backs.

  The spider above me was very chunky. And its abdomen was alive with smaller bodies and thousands of legs.

  Oh fuck indeed.

  “Darkraven,” I yelled across the cavern. “Hit its body with with a freeze spell. One that will freeze an area not just an individual creature”

  Bless her she didn’t question or argue. I was still looking at it and saw a electric blue bolt hit it and instantly the bodies stopped moving.

  Then, they started to fall.