Chapter 584: Well, Shit

I hadn’t planned to explore the room, but my curiosity and greed had wormed their way into my head. I didn’t need a second magebane and Konstantin already had two runic weapons. Alhur had a short runic blade, and I don’t know how I felt about him getting such a potent one. He invited himself on this delve, and Castile didn’t trust him.

Magebane blades were rare, and I once learned there were only four in the entire Telhian Empire. Those blades were either locked away or safely rusting on the hips of a First Citizen who wore it as a status symbol. That was where the most powerful artifacts in the Empire ended up.

“We shouldn’t split the group,” Castile spoke up.

I looked at Castile expectantly and she just shrugged. “I guess we are all going then,” I said, hiding my aggravation at dividing the loot. I turned left down the corridor and at the intersection took another left. Being paranoid about the dungeon, I pulsed earth speak, but didn’t uncover any new traps.

“What is down there?” Castile asked about the corridor we were leaving behind.

“That is the trap room. There is a golden statue at the far end of the room that enthralls you and you mindlessly walk toward it. In the room are black puddles that are actually black oozes,” I said.

“What is a black ooze?” Lexi asked.

Konstantin answered her question. “The most diabolical monster you will ever encounter. It looks like an oily puddle, but once you step on it, it clings to you and crawls up your body and invades every orifice on your body. It then digests you from the inside out,” sounded like he spoke from experience. His tone had Lexi recoil and it even sent a shiver down my spine.

“What did the statue depict? How large was it?” Lepidus asked.

I stopped walking, causing everyone else to stop. I thought back on it. I couldn’t recall. Maybe I could recreate it in the dreamscape, but it would only take a few minutes to check. What harm could there be in checking?

Silk blood caterpillar rope appeared in my hand and I tied it around my waist. “What are you doing?” Konstantin asked.

“I want to check on the statue before we fight the spider,” I answered.

“Why?” Castile asked.

“My memories of the room are blocked. At least of the statue. Konstantin can hold the rope and pull me back if I succumb to the lure,” I said.

“Isn’t it dangerous? You said there were black oozes in the room,” Lexi said worriedly.

“I have a spell form that protects me from mind magic,” I assured her.

“No defense is perfect,” Castile warned.

“I will help him with the rope,” Alhur volunteered. “We can both pull him back if needed.” I didn’t agree, and I was soon walking down the corridor with my eyes focused on the floor. The black, oily pools in the room reflected the river of light on the ceiling, creating a spectacle. I slowly looked up to see a life-sized statue of an elf holding a sword.

My mind fortress brushed aside the spell trying to worm its way into perception. Only this time, it was not a golden statue but a stone statue. Two large emeralds were set in the eyes, and I assumed this was the origin of the mind magic.

“I am fine!” I yelled back to the group. “There is no golden statue, it was just an illusion of one and a magical lure to make you walk in blindly.”

“Are you going to clear the room?” Konstantin yelled from sixty feet away, holding the rope.

I studied the room, counting four black puddles. “I don’t have anything to kill the oozes.” I could use air shields to walk over the puddles and retrieve those two large emerald eyes, but then the oozes would no longer be constrained to the room. We didn’t need black oozes following us through the dungeon. The only way to kill them was with fire. I returned to the group and stored the valuable rope.

“Let’s go kill a spider,” I said earnestly.

The spider room was covered in strands of webbing as thick as my finger. The webbing blocked almost the entire ceiling, making the room very dark. While the others scanned the square room for the spider, my eyes immediately locked onto it with my aether sight. The spider blended in so well with the wall that Maveith and I hadn’t noticed it when we entered the room. Now I could see it flattened against the left wall. Some of the threads closing the room vibrated, but the arachnid was just trying to draw our attention away from it. It was a clever girl.

“That’s spider silk?” Lexi asked.

“Yes and no. Spider silk is the raw thread from the spinnerets. This is webbing and is intended to snare prey,” I said.

“Where is it?” Castile finally asked.

“It is covering the entire left wall,” I answered, and all eyes shifted left. The spider’s eight eyes must have sensed it was discovered as it detached itself from the wall. I heard Castile inhale deeply, Konstantin cursed under his breath, and Alhur connected two elvish words that shouldn’t be associated with each other. “Yes, she is a big one. Even bigger than I remember.”

The room was a decent size, but the spider took up almost a quarter of the room with its long, chitinous legs and massive abdomen. Once again, I was puzzled by the fact that there was nothing in this room for the spider to eat. The two fangs on the creature twitched in anticipation. “If my dimensional space doesn’t work again, target the legs while I distract it. I will be using my thicken air spell form,” I warned my companions.

Weapons were drawn and Lexi was pushed to the back of the group with Lepidus and I rushed in. I created an air shield to avoid stepping on the webbing and to close the distance. The ginormous spider didn’t meet me, instead rolling back and bringing her abdomen to bare. A messy, squiggly mess of thick spider thread came at me. The thicken air spell worked against me, as the spider silk was so light when it hit the affected area, it formed a wall of webbing.

I used an air shield to halt my progress and protect myself, but it was too late. The slow-moving wall of webbing encased the air shield and me. The spider didn’t hesitate to roll back over and launch itself at me, fangs first. I could still see just enough of it through the spaghetti layers of thread. The spider’s head vanished, but the mass of the spider still bulldozed into me, pressing the webbing hard against me as it came down on me. Large amounts of the spider’s blood soaked the webbing and me.

I could hear the others hacking away at the spider and webbing, and just shook my head. My only injury was my pride as it took them ten minutes to free me. Mostly because the thread was hindering them as well. “That went exactly to plan,” I announced when I was finally free.

“That was your plan? It looked dangerous,” Lexi asked, astounded.

“No, girl, that was just someone pretending he had everything in control even after he majorly miscalculated,” Konstantin chided me.

“I had a backup plan. Did the reward chest materialize?” I asked, looking around. I immediately noticed the silver coins and stone debris. Lepidus held the sister blade to magebane in his hands, inspecting it closely.

“It is not a magebane,” he announced when all eyes fell on him. “It is a venom blade, but the poison is not magebane,” he explained. “I think the spiders on the blade are boneblight spiders.”

“Dragon’s mercy,” Castile whispered. “That is worse than magebane. Although it works slowly, it dissolves your skeleton from within. After about an hour, your skeleton is no longer strong enough to support you. Then the nest swarms you and consumes your entire body.”

“That is the case for a normal bite,” Lepidus said scholastically. “I believe this weapon’s poison acts much faster. It is a truly terrible blade.” Venere’s hands held out the blade for me to take.

“I could…” Alhur started to say, but Konstantin cut him off.

“It was Eryk’s kill, so it is his blade to do with as he sees fit.” Konstantin nodded at me, but he was not getting the blade either.

I vanished the blade and made to collect the silver coins and bring out the collector. Since Konstantin had determined the kill was mine, all the rewards would be mine as well. The apex channeling essence that formed from the spider got another shocked reaction from Castile. I shrugged as the glossy black sphere disappeared into my belt pouch. It was a very unusual essence to get from a spider, but it was the same essence I got the first time I had slain the spider. I was going to get everything I could from this room, and that meant also cracking the abdomen and getting the massive spinneret.

When I finished, we headed to the firebear room. I was not disappointed to not receive any of loot. The apex fire essence went to Castile so she could trade it at an adventurers guild. The dungeon healing potion went to Konstantin, and the stamina potion went to Lexi. I stored the fire bear pelt that Alhur took the time to skin.

My space was dangerously close to capacity, so I just filled up my belt pouches with some fresh but smaller apples to snack on. The bodies of the doppelgangers were still in the room, but we were still cautious as we passed through. I was more than a little nervous as we moved towards the dark room. I hoped the dungeon did not screw with us and change the room.

The matte-black archway looked almost like a dungeon exit as we approached, but it lacked the glossy surface. The others stopped approaching when we got within ten feet and I turned to face them. “What?” I asked.

“There is a wrongness to the room. I can feel it,” Konstantin said. Lexi nodded strongly and Castile more slowly.

Maveith and I had felt the same thing, but maybe it was stronger now. I didn’t feel anything from the room. I didn’t even feel my mind fortress trigger when I looked at the darkness. I walked right up to the room and stared into the darkness with my aether sight. “It looks like a rough-hewn passage, maybe twenty feet across, and it goes beyond the range of my sight.”

“Let me try to use my all-seeing-eye,” Castile volunteered. She edged closer and closed her eyes and quickly shook her head. While I can push past the dungeon veil into the room, my sight cannot penetrate the darkness.

“It should be a room where mithril can be mined,” Alhur said confidently. “The dungeon confirmed it. If Eryk is the only one who can see in the darkness, maybe he should go in alone.” Castile gave the elf a sharp look.

“I will go in with him,” Konstantin volunteered.

“No, Alhur is right. You all should retreat to the doppelganger room. If there is a monster inside I cannot handle, I will lure it back to you,” I said with confidence after some thought.

“I don’t like, and not just because it feels like that is Pluto’s bedchamber in there,” Konstantin muttered.

“It is just an array that emits fear,” I said. “I will be fine.” The others backed down the corridor and I stood before the darkness and stepped inside. Gravel crunched under my feet, and a metallic smell assaulted my nose. An earth pulse told me everything was solid stone, with veins of gold, silver, and… yes, mithril deep in the walls. I didn’t hear anything or see any threats with my earth speak. I relaxed a little and turned back to the doorway, only to find it gone. Well, shit. That meant this was the final room on this floor of the dungeon, and there had to be something in here guarding it.

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