They burned their way into the third nest by the time Alistair’s patience snapped.
“Another one,” he muttered, wiping ichor off his cheek. “That’s… what, nest number three? How many eight-legged freaks does one valley need?”
Kael loosed an arrow that nailed a broodling mid-leap. “Enough to make you complain every five minutes, apparently.”
Alistair swung his redcrystal sword through another skittering spider, the blade shrieking as it split corrupted chitin. He exhaled through his nose, bloodsong thrumming too low to satisfy. “We’ve killed close to a hundred of these things. A hundred. And what do I have to show for it? Not a single level. Not one.”
[XP Gained: +1,832]
[XP Gained: +1,967]
[XP Gained: +1,501]
Progress bars crawled at a snail’s pace.
Meanwhile...
[Companion: Kaelren has leveled up → Lv. 32.]
[Companion: Brimma has leveled up → Lv. 35.]
Alistair glared at the glowing text. “Wonderful. Glad everyone else is thriving while I grind pest control.”
Buddy roared, jaws clamping on a broodspawn’s head, the crunch echoing through the trees.
Brimma, still in her owlbear form, smashed down with a swipe that pulped three spiders at once. Green veins of nature magic crawled over her fur, strengthening every blow. Her screech split the clearing as she ripped another apart with her beak.
Kael whistled under his breath. “I’d say she’s thriving.”
“Thriving,” Alistair repeated flatly. “She’s committing arachnid genocide.”
The nest shrieked around them. Hundreds of strands quivered, funneling dozens more brood toward the fight.
Brimma welcomed it. She barreled into the horde, feathers and fur bristling with green light. Every impact cracked the ground, her claws tearing webs and bodies alike. Her screech scattered smaller spiders, and when the bigger ones leapt, she ripped them out of the air with her beak.
Buddy was her shadow. He circled her bulk like fire incarnate, hurling himself into flankers. His flaming body seared webs as he passed, steam rising from every step. One spider leapt at Brimma’s flank; Buddy caught it midair and slammed it down, claws gouging until ichor hissed against the soil.
Kael and Alistair handled the stragglers.
Arrows whispered into joints, Kael’s rapid shots collapsing spiders before they could flank. His Fangbasket quiver pulsed, roots wrapping arrowheads, leaving rot behind in every corpse.
Alistair stuck close to him, eyes scanning the periphery. When a spider tried to crawl overhead, he hurled [Oblivion Orb], the shadow-sphere exploding on impact and bouncing to the next. Limbs curled inward, husks smoldering in ghostfire.
More pressed from the ground-web. Alistair raised a hand. [Grave Ember] sparked to life, five motes of burning eidolon flame whirling around him. He sent them forward, detonating one after another. Web strands dissolved where they hit, whole clusters of spiders shrieking as their bodies burned from the inside.
[Eidolon Flame: Grave Ember]
Effectiveness vs. Spirits/Web Constructs: +200%
The webs hissed, curling away. Finally, finally, a spell that worked.
Alistair smirked. “There we go. Eat ghostfire, you ugly bastards.”
Kael fired another arrow and said casually, “You’re enjoying this more than you’re letting on.”
Alistair stepped aside as a husk dropped beside him, headless from Buddy’s bite. “I’m covered in spider guts. If this is enjoyment, then yes, I’m thrilled.”
Another nest shrieked. The brood kept coming. Brimma and Buddy stood like living siege engines in the clearing, mowing them down in wave after wave.
Alistair swiped his blade clean and kept casting, every detonation of eidolon fire cutting deeper through the web. He could feel it, every spider burned meant another fraction of the tile cleansed.
System pinged at the edge of his vision:
[Tile Cleansing Progress: 37% → 42%]
[XP Gained: +1,642]
Not enough. Never enough. But it was working.
By the sixth nest, Brimma finally shrank. The glow guttered out of her, fur and feathers collapsing into wrinkles and gnome-shape. She flopped onto her staff, wheezing like she’d run a marathon uphill.
“That’s it,” she croaked. “No more beak. No more claws. You’re on your own, bloodboy.”
The notification in Alistair’s vision had already told him what his eyes confirmed:
[Shapeshifting Form: Dire Owlbear — Expired]
[Cooldown: 3 hours]
Alistair wiped a smear of ichor off his cheek, staring at the webbed clearing ahead. The brood hissed, eyes glinting in every corner. “Wonderful,” he muttered. “Guess it’s my turn.”
Kael smirked, already nocking another arrow. “You’ve been slacking anyway.”
“Slacking?” Alistair snorted, mana coiling at his fingertips. “Watch and learn.”
He thrust his hand out, [Grave Ember] bloomed, five motes of ghostfire circling him before streaking into the mass of spiders. They detonated one after another, spectral flames chewing through silk and flesh alike. The webs shrieked, hissing as they curled and died.
[XP Gained: +1,784]
[Eidolon Flame – Level Up!]
New Level: 12 → 13
The embers re-formed almost immediately, stronger, brighter. Alistair grinned. “Oh, that’s better.”
More spiders surged over the floor-web. He snapped his fingers. [Frozen Step].
The ground beneath him crackled into frost, spider legs slipping out from under them as though someone had swapped their limbs for stilts.
Kael barked a laugh as two broodspawn crashed headfirst into each other. “That’s… actually hilarious.”
“I live to entertain,” Alistair said, darting forward. His sword cut low, severing legs, while another hand conjured [Black Lance]. A spear of shadow carved straight through three spiders, piercing them like skewered fruit. Their chitin cracked, venom spilling dark across the ice.
[Black Lance — Critical Strike!]
?137 HP (Pierce)
?10% Armor (6s)
Buddy barreled through the slipping mass, jaws tearing, fire spilling over their twitching bodies. He shook one like a ragdoll, flinging it into a cluster that collapsed in flames.
The brood shrieked louder. More poured from the webbing canopy above.
Alistair planted his feet and raised his hands palm up, [Searing Line].
A narrow band of fire tore through six meters of silk, cutting a smoking trench across the nest. Spiders caught in it twitched and fell, legs curling.
His grin widened. “See? Progress.”
But more were already pouring in. He snapped his wrist, calling forth [Smolderveil].
A wall of ash and sparks erupted in front of him, six meters long. The spiders hit it head-on, hissing as their eyes watered, accuracy failing in the haze. Arrows whistled through the curtain, Kael firing cleanly at their staggering shapes.
[Smolderveil Active: Enemy Accuracy ?15%]
Brimma, still catching her breath, raised her staff weakly. “Keep this up, leech, and I might actually be impressed.”
Alistair slashed another spider in half, then hurled an [Oblivion Orb] into the next cluster. The sphere detonated, bounced, detonated again, and left husks writhing in its wake.
[Dark Magic – Level Up!]
New Level: 15 → 16
The notifications stacked in his vision like applause. He carved forward, ghostfire detonating, frost cracking under his boots, fire-lines cutting swaths of burning silk. The whole clearing shimmered with ash, shadow, and ghostlight.
Buddy charged beside him, Kael’s arrows whispering past his ear, Brimma’s curses ringing as she dragged her exhausted frame along just to stay in the fight.
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And slowly, inch by inch, the nest broke.
[Tile Cleansing Progress: 56% → 61%]
[XP Gained: +2,013]
[XP Gained: +1,799]
Alistair exhaled hard, blade dripping with ichor. His whole body thrummed with bloodsong, his mana bar flashing red at the edges. But the nest was quiet.
He spat spider-gore from his lip, then laughed bitterly. “Hundred down, thousand to go.”
Buddy barked, dropping another twitching leg at his feet. Kael smirked and clapped him on the back.
Alistair sighed. “Fine. Two hundred down.”
The final nest wasn’t a clearing.
It was a wound in the mountain.
They found it at the foot of the leftmost peak, where the dead forest thinned into jagged stone and the air changed. Not colder. Not warmer. Just… heavier, like the valley itself was holding its breath.
Buddy stopped first.
His ears went up. His hackles rose. He didn’t bark this time. He just stared at a black crack in the rock face, a slanted opening half-choked by old webbing that moved in the draft like pale hair.
Alistair wiped sweat and spider ichor from his brow and peered in. “Tell me that’s not the final nest.”
Brimma’s staff tapped the ground twice. “It’s the final nest.”
Kael sniffed, eyes narrowing. “It smells… sweet.”
“That’s a horrible thing to say about spiders,” Alistair muttered, and stepped inside.
The cavern swallowed them.
The first thing Alistair noticed was the web.
Not the thick, ropey, sticky stuff that had turned half the tile into a nightmare of tripping hazards and screaming. This was different.
These strands were so fine they were almost invisible until the light caught them. They draped from stalactites like silver mist. They pooled along the floor in soft layers like snow. When Buddy padded forward, his paws didn’t stick. The silk gave under his weight with a strange, cushioned resistance… and then sprang back as if alive.
Mana threaded through it. Not in pulses like a spell. More like a steady hum, the way the Founding Crystal had hummed when it first recognized the nexus.
Kael’s eyes went wide. “That’s… pure.”
Brimma crouched and pinched a strand between two fingers. It didn’t cling. It didn’t snap. It stretched, impossibly strong, then settled back into place.
Her expression turned grudgingly reverent.
“…Fine,” she said. “That’s impressive.”
Alistair stared deeper into the cavern, where the web thickened into a pale sea. “Everything in here is impressive. That’s the problem.”
They advanced slow, weapons ready.
The guardians came first.
Not dozens. Not swarms. Just six shapes, spaced like sentries around the cavern. They clung to the walls and ceiling, bodies darker and thicker than the ones they’d been slaughtering all night, legs long enough to span a wagon. Their eyes reflected ghostlight.
[Corrupted Steelweave Guardian]
Level: 16
Alistair exhaled. “Only sixteen? After what we’ve been through, I’m offended.”
The nearest guardian dropped soundlessly.
Buddy launched at the same time, a blur of heat and muscle. The guardian met him midair and for a second it looked like two monsters had decided to hate each other professionally.
Alistair didn’t wait.
He raised a hand and whispered, “Grave Ember.”
Five ghostfire motes spun into existence, then shot forward like angry stars. They detonated against the guardian’s abdomen, shredding chitin and burning through silk-spun armor.
The web beneath the spider didn’t catch fire. It just darkened for a breath, then shook off the scorch like it had decided Alistair’s flames weren’t worth respecting.
“That’s new,” Alistair said flatly. “I hate it.”
Kael’s arrows started singing.
He was calmer in the cavern, moving like he belonged here, quiet steps, controlled breathing, drawing and firing into weak points with clinical cruelty. Two guardians shuddered and fell before they even reached the ground, pinned to webbing like trophies.
Brimma, still exhausted from burning her three-hour transformation, planted her staff and snarled, “Get off my ceiling, you eight-legged mistakes.”
She slammed the wood into the stone.
[Seismic Bloom]
Stone flowers erupted beneath a guardian’s landing point, launching jagged petals that tore its legs apart. The spider crashed down, flailing, and Buddy ended it with one savage bite that snapped chitin like dry bark.
Alistair waded forward, blade low, and cast [Smolderveil] across the cavern mouth behind them. A wall of ash and sparks rolled up, breaking sightlines and making the remaining guardians hesitate.
“Containment,” he murmured. “We’re doing containment now.”
Brimma shot him a look. “Stop talking like you know what you’re doing.”
He grinned without humor. “I’ve been improvising for a week straight. At this point it’s a lifestyle.”
The last guardian tried to retreat, back toward the center of the cavern, toward the deeper web.
Alistair flicked his wrist.
[Black Lance]
A spear of shadow formed and hurled itself through the spider’s body in a straight line, pinning it mid-scuttle. It spasmed, legs scrabbling at air, then sagged.
Kael loosed one final arrow into its eye for good measure.
Silence rushed in.
Not peace. Just the brief pause before something bigger remembered to breathe.
Then Alistair saw her.
At first he thought it was the cavern itself.
A structure. A part of the mountain.
Then the “structure” shifted, just slightly, like a slow tide.
And his stomach tightened.
The Matriarch lay in the back of the cavern, anchored into a web-throne that fused her to the rock. Her body was the size of a building, swollen and pale, segmented like a nightmare cathedral. Her legs were folded in tight, not because she was resting, because she couldn’t move.
Her abdomen rose and fell with slow, heavy effort. Every breath tugged on the mana-silk draped around her, making the whole cavern shimmer.
She didn’t attack.
She didn’t even turn.
She just existed.
And that existence made the lesser spiders feel like a warm-up.
[Corrupted Steelweave Matriarch]
Level: 18
Status: Anchored (Immobile)
Condition: Breeder Node
Brimma swore quietly. Not one of her loud ones. The kind that meant she was actually thinking.
Kael’s bow lowered an inch. “She’s… trapped.”
Alistair stared at the webbing that pinned her, the thick bundles of silk that looked less like a nest and more like a machine.
“She’s not trapped,” he said slowly. “She’s installed.”
Buddy growled, low and unhappy, heat rippling off his shoulders.
Alistair could feel the Founding Crystal’s pull, faint but present, like a thread in his chest tugging toward this cavern.
And then, as if the world itself agreed that he’d found something important, the system hit him.
[Settlement Quest Updated: Conquer the Next Tile]
Objective: Clear Monster Infestation
Progress: 93% → 100%
[Bonus Objective Completed: Destroy All Nest Guardians]
Reward: +Settlement XP
Reward: +Character XP
[Tile Cleansed: Unclaimed Territory]
You may now claim this tile using your Administrative Crystal.
And then the one that made Alistair’s eyes widen despite everything.
[Node Discovered: The Matriarch’s Lair]
Type: Production Node (Enchanted Resource)
Output: Enchanted Spider Silk (Steelweave)
Uses: Light Armor, Cloaks, Bindings, Runecloth, Enchanted Thread
Status: Dormant (Requires Claim + Node Protocols)
Warning: Breeder Node — Requires Maintenance
Alistair blinked, then let out a slow, incredulous laugh.
Brimma spun on him. “Don’t you dare get excited.”
He pointed at the air like the notification was a personal insult to her pessimism. “It literally says enchanted spider silk.”
“It also literally says breeder node,” Brimma snapped. “That means more spiders.”
Kael’s gaze stayed locked on the Matriarch. “We could kill her. End it.”
Buddy barked once, as if voting enthusiastically for murder.
Alistair didn’t answer right away.
He walked closer, careful, because the web here wasn’t sticky, but it was dense, layered, and it hummed under his boots. He stopped at a safe distance and stared at the silk draped like moonlight across the cavern ceiling.
Fine. Soft. Mana-rich.
The kind of thing you could turn into armor that actually mattered. The kind of thing that would keep people alive.
The kind of thing his Legendary Ashen Wyrdsilk armor would probably look at and get jealous.
He turned back to his companions.
Brimma had her arms crossed, face carved out of suspicion and practical rage.
Kael’s expression was wary, but curious. The wood elf in him was disgusted by the blight outside… but the hunter in him understood resources.
Buddy was wagging his tail slowly, like he was proud they’d found a new place to kill things.
Alistair said, “If we kill her, we lose the node.”
Brimma said, “If we keep her, we’re idiots.”
Kael exhaled. “We could keep her… and make sure she never becomes a problem.”
Brimma stared at him like he’d suggested hugging a plague.
“You mean… feed her?” she said, voice rising. “And guard her. And exterminate anything she produces. Forever.”
Kael shrugged awkwardly. “Better than starving.”
Alistair’s mind jumped to the Caelari in the ruined throne room, their hollow eyes, their strange bone-blades, the way they’d listened when he spoke in their tongue like he was something worth believing in.
A kingdom couldn’t live on rations and sarcasm.
A kingdom needed infrastructure. Gear. Trade. Power.
It needed something to offer the world besides “please don’t kill us.”
He looked at the Matriarch again.
The monster didn’t look regal.
It looked like a suffering engine. A factory made of flesh.
Alistair rubbed his face. “I hate that this is smart.”
Brimma snorted. “You hate it because it isn’t your idea.”
“It’s absolutely my idea,” Alistair lied instantly.
Kael’s mouth twitched. “We’ll need a guard rotation.”
“We’ll need a way to keep her contained,” Brimma added, grudgingly slipping into problem-solving like it was a bad habit. “This web isn’t normal. It’s mana-fed. If we can learn how it’s anchored...”
Alistair cut in, “We’ll claim the tile, bind the node, and then put rules on it.”
Brimma pointed her staff at him like a weapon. “And if one of your lovely ‘rules’ fails and we wake up to a spider army inside the mountain?”
Alistair’s smile turned sharp. “Then we do what we’ve been doing all night.”
He glanced at Buddy.
Buddy barked like a war drum.
Alistair sighed. “We kill them. Again.”
Brimma looked like she wanted to argue more.
Then her eyes flicked to the silk. To the way it shimmered when the Matriarch breathed. To the mana woven into it like a promise.
She muttered, “Fine. Pros outweigh the cons.”
Kael nodded once, decisive. “We keep it.”
Alistair stared at the immobile titan and spoke like he was making a pact with something that didn’t care.
“Congratulations,” he told the Matriarch. “You’re part of the kingdom now.”
Buddy padded forward and sat, as if claiming the cavern personally.
Alistair’s administrative crystal felt heavier in his pocket, like it knew what was coming next.
He swallowed, then smirked.
“Alright,” he murmured. “Now we’re talking.”
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