“What can a blood spider do?” Vel asked, breathy as Sigurd kept dragging her back, and for good reason. Before them, multiple black spiders were climbing up into the mine, their eight legs skittering across the ground and walls. Walls.
[Skill gained: Climb]
[0.5 Dexterity added]
“Magic,” Sigurd said, shoving Vel aside as he pulled his bow out and nocked an arrow. He pulled back, firing. His arrow flew true, sinking into the bulbous backside of a spider and dropping it from the wall. It at least slowed another, landing on top of it.
Vel pulled her dagger out, not sure that the tiny thing would do much good against these beasts, and she certainly couldn’t afford to throw it. She raised it and took a few steps back, trying to get any time available to her before she inevitably had to fight back.
The first one jumped, closing the gap between it and her with ease. She froze. Eight legs and eight eyes were aimed for her with shiny black pinchers twitching to sink into her skin.
[Skill gained: Kin Control]
[Taboo skill: Kin Control]
[Skill removed: Kin Control]
[Skill counter gained: Sever Link]
[0.5 Magic added]
An arrow struck the flying spider, forcing it to just barely miss its target. Vel, blinking, snapped out of her stupor. Arachnids. Yes, they were awful, but she had to fight!
Magic, she thought. She could use that. Dagger and hand held up, Vel began to finally pull her weight beside the hunter that was quickly expending his arrow supply. While a chill cut through her body, a warmth sparked to life from the palm of her left hand, and flew directly into the next spider. It howled in pain, the flames singing into its thick skin and squelching deeper into its abdomen like a knife.
It stumbled toward Vel, and utilizing its weak state, she thrust her dagger into its head, keeping clear of its pincers. Much to her surprise, the blade sank deep into the arachnid’s flesh. The spider had such an armor-like sheen that she hadn’t expected its skin to be so tender, bloodying Vel’s hand in a viscous dark red liquid.
[Dagger Stab level 17]
“There’s too many!” Sigurd yelled, staggering back further, Vel moving with him. There was no hope of running, not with how fast these things were. They’d scaled that cavern and gotten to them faster than Sigurd and Vel could possibly run.
Think! she thought, launching another small flame, then another, and a third, each shot hitting a different spider, yet coming with its own toll. She’d freeze to death at this rate! With a fourth shot, hitting a spider in the same spot as she had before, it went up in flames, the fire eating away at its innards. Its kin trampled over it as it deflated, and Vel raised an eyebrow.
[Fireball level 27]
[Fireball level 28]
[Fireball level 29]
The cost, she decided, was worth it, but she knew she’d need to be clever with it. The flames didn’t last long when a spider went up in them, hardly even affecting the others. No, she needed them to all go up in flames, preferably at once. Then again . . . [Sever Link]. Could she use it? And what would the cost be?
A deep, guttural cry sounded from beside Vel, and her head snapped towards Sigurd. He had a leg, a spider’s leg, lodged in his thigh. He hacked at the leg with his dagger, the spider writhing as he staggered back, pressing himself against the mine’s wall for support.
Seeing the spiders pour towards him, Vel stepped in front of him and ignored the pounding in her chest that told her she should run. Instead, she sliced through the air, her dagger clipping the first spider across its front legs and head. With one spell of fireball, it collapsed to the ground. She hacked at a second one, then turned, taking on a third before the second was even fully dealt with. There was no time. Sigurd had been holding off the majority of them before to protect her, but now . . .
After slashing the third, Vel made her first mistake━glancing back at Sigurd. Just as an alert popped up in her vision, she felt a sting in her calf, followed by a few more alerts.
[Dagger Slash level 33]
[Skill gained: Poison Bite]
[0.5 Constitution added]
[Poison Resistance level 10]
“Poison?!” Vel hissed, and kicked the spider that’d bit her away. As soon as she’d done that, Sigurd grabbed her by the jerkin, yanking her back with him. Despite his limp, he managed to save her from being mauled by several arachnids, each piling on top of each other where she used to be.
“Fall back!” Sigurd shouted. “We need a tighter bottleneck!” He shoved her behind him, and pushing against her back with a firm hand, said, “Run.”
Vel did. It was as if he’d given her the permission to give into that instinct that told her she needed to flee; to survive. Yet, in spite of her racing heart, she spared a glance back at Sigurd. He wasn’t running. Rather, he fended off spider after spider, dagger expertly slashing them to pieces. Severed legs were stacking at his feet, too many of them, enough that Vel knew he couldn’t fend them off for long.
She halted, digging her heals in. “Retribute you, Sigurd!” she cursed, scowling when the hunter howled, taking a bite in his dagger arm, then another on his already injured leg. A third spider reeled its sharp front leg back, bearing it down towards Sigurd’s other leg. Vel was not having it.
Hurling herself with a mighty leap, she used [rock throw] to launch further and [feather fall] to increase her time through the air before releasing the skill. She passed Sigurd’s left, dagger sinking into the spider whose leg was just barely penetrating Sigurd’s.
“Foolish hunter!” she sneered, giving Sigurd the side eye as flames burst through the spider in front of her, its form melting to the ground and the heat nipping at her hand.
[Dagger Stab level 18]
[Fireball level 30]
Sigurd had snatched his dagger with his left hand, using it to slash across the head of the spider attached to his right arm while Vel shot two blazing balls of fire at the one stuck to his leg. When it deflated, Vel spun, fending off a second spider, then a third, each either sneaking a scratch or a bite in on her arm.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
[Dagger Slash level 34]
[Tough Hide level 17]
[Dagger Slash level 35]
[Tough Hide level 18]
Grabbing Sigurd’s arm, she yanked him away from the ever growing spider hoard, then started into a run, the hunter grunting as he stumbled behind her.
“Vel!” he seethed. “We can’t both make it.”
One look at the hunter made that apparent. He was struggling, his face red and form trembling ever so slightly. Even now, the spiders nipped at his ankles, and she knew that with each bite, he’d suffer from the poison━something she was only now starting to feel. Despite that, she didn’t let the growing tingle bother her, but more than likely, [poison resistance] was already protecting her.
“No,” she said, and threw her weight to yank Sigurd past her. He was heavy, strong, but for the moment, weak enough that his form toppled, and he rolled by with a groan. Vel then took her place before him and stood her ground as the first few spiders came upon her.
“We’re both going to make it,” Vel said, “Retribute this!”
Sidestepping, she dodged the first spider’s bite, then bore her dagger into its back while simultaneously sacrificing her warmth to cast [fireball]. She didn’t even fully wait for the monster to deflate before swinging her dagger at the next one, clipping its ugly pincers.
[Dagger Stab level 19]
A pain sliced into Vel’s side as she stabbed and incinerated the next spider. Jumping away, she twisted around, seeing the beast that bore her blood on its front leg lower the leg to the ground. It crawled after her, while the one she’d nipped sunk its pincers into her right leg.
[Fireball level 31]
[Tough Hide level 19]
[Poison Resistance level 11]
Sigurd’s large hunting dagger slid into the spider biting Vel, and as it howled and withdrew, she shot a [fireball] at it, losing the dagger under the spider that trampled over its dying kin.
Kin . . . Vel thought, clenching her teeth. She wasn’t winning at this rate, but she’d been given a counter to the skill the spiders were using, or rather, what she thought the blood spider was using. Jumping back, Sigurd now sitting up beside her, bow and arrow fumbling in his weak hands, she looked down the mine. While she shivered at the sea of black spiders eagerly awaiting their turn to have at her, she could just barely see the red spider that lorded over them all.
Okay, purple fairy, use [sever link] on that thing, please? she thought, stabbing, slashing, then punching a spider that launched at a gasping Sigurd.
[Dagger Stab level 20]
[Dagger Slash level 36]
[Unarmed Punch level 2]
No response came, and Vel knew she couldn’t keep this up, she . . . she . . . I can’t leave him. He’d die, she thought, yelping as she was scratched, bitten, and stabbed. But I’ll die! Her vision of reuniting with Edard was sinking away with every hit she took, doom seeping into her racing heart.
Coming this way was a mistake. Velmira was a weak girl who’d never really fought before, and now she was supposed to face eight-legged monstrosities that threatened to take away everything.
Something big hit her back, knocking Vel to the ground. Then the pain ensued. She was vulnerable, arachnids taking their opportunity to bite at her, scratch at her, and tear into her flesh. She howled, writhing and scratching desperately, slashing, stabbing, and sending bolts of fire out, none of which seemed to deter the many spiders that had her pinned.
[Skill Gained: Shadow Sneak]
[0.5 Magic added]
[Class Dark Avenger level 1]
[1 Total Renew received from Boon of Renewal]
[Dagger Slash level 37]
[Dagger Slash level 38]
[Dagger Slash level 39]
[Dagger Stab level 21]
[Dagger Stab level 22]
[Dagger Stab level 23]
[Metal Claw level 14]
[Metal Claw level 15]
[Metal Claw level 16]
[Poison Stinger level 6]
[Poison Stinger level 7]
[Poison Stinger level 8]
[Poison Stinger level 9]
[Poison Stinger level 10]
[Fireball level 32]
[Fireball level 33]
[Fireball level 34]
[Warning: Death imminent. Would you like to use Total Renew?]
Pain numbed as it grew too much, Vel’s vision darkening, save for the glowing red letters. Death imminent. She was dying. She was dying. Spiders, under the controlling gaze of their superior, were tearing her to bits. [Tough hide] and [Poison Resistance] continued to climb in levels, even as the world faded, Vel sinking deeper into oblivion.
[Warning: Death imminent. Would you like to use Total Renew?]
The alert blinked loudly in her vision, and Vel struggled to gasp in her next breath.
No! she flinched what little of her was left. No! she thought again, internally screaming. You are not some weak little girl! Live!
Vel’s vision darkened over the red letters, yet she held on, staring at the last few━use Total Renew?
Yes, she thought.
A strong soothing sensation shot through Vel’s body, as did a glow. The spiders howled, their screeching voices growing quieter as the warmth and glow that wrapped around Velmira grew larger. Sensation stretched back into her limbs, and where there was once pain was now warmth, reinvigorating every part of her form.
I am Velmira, Dark Avenger, she resolutely thought, pushing herself up to her feet, strength and wakefulness driving her to get up.
“Avenge this!” she cried, hand curled around her dagger. The spiders, though shying away from the light, tried to push forward, their forms trembling. They didn’t want to fight her, she could see it. She didn’t know how long the light would last, but she knew that she needed to utlize every moment of it.
[Sever link]. That was the key. Looking at the blood spider, she squinted, just making out some of its eight large eyes. If it could portray emotion, Vel suspected that it looked upon her with wrath. You cannot have them, she thought, and felt a spark light up in her mind.
There were lines that connected this thing to the shade spiders, and the more she stroked the idea, giving it attention, the more her vision was filled with dozens upon dozens of lines, each reaching out to individual shade spiders. Selecting one, Vel snipped it, hearing a slight crack in her head as she did. The spider, now free, turned and screeched. As it did, however, the others turned on it, tearing it to bits.
The blood spider did not want to relinquish its control on its kin, going to great lengths to eliminate those that it did lose control of. Vel could use that.
Light fading around her, dagger held up just in case, she was quick.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
[Sever Link level 2]
[Sever Link level 3]
[Sever Link level 4]
One after the other, quivering, frightened arachnids were freed, and the other spiders turned on them just as quickly.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
[Sever Link level 5]
[Sever Link level 6]
[Sever Link level 7]
The quicker she could free them, the more a war seemed to break out, and a chain reaction started. Other lines were snapping without Vel’s assistance, as if spiders realized that freedom from their lord was possible.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
[Sever Link level 8]
[Sever Link level 9]
[Sever Link level 10]
Finally, Vel wasn’t even an option to fight against, the spiders fighting each other. The glow around her was gone, and she sucked in a deep breath.
“Sigurd!” she gasped out, and turned to the hunter, eyes wide. He . . . he . . .
Oh no.
