Chapter 12: Chapter 12: Arachnophobia

I laughed madly as I ducked and weaved around the room, dodging ball after ball of acid. The spiders were coordinating their attacks to some extent, but only their timing and not their aim, so they weren't doing a good job of blocking off my space to dodge. The laughter was partly from the insanity of my situation, but also because I knew how badly it pissed the spiders off and I wanted them angry and stupid, not calm and intelligent. Angry enough to charge me one by one, without any coordination.

Puddles of acid coated the floor, and I couldn't avoid stepping in it. More kept splashing me. In both cases, my armour held, the silk proving as resistant to the acid as I'd hoped. Luckily, none was splashing up as high as my face, because although I'd done my best at making a helmet, even being willing to sacrifice my hair to get maximum coverage, I still needed to see and breathe. And yes, cutting off one's hair was a major sacrifice for a girl, thank you very much, even if I could get all mine back just by dying.

And again, I felt that was a misuse of the word 'just'...

Novice dodger advanced to level 5
Novice dodger advanced to level 6

The spiders did have a limit; five shots of acid, and they were out. Or at least, five shots and they stopped firing. I shouldn't discount the possibility they were faking. I also hadn't been accurately counting, and it was possible not all of them had used up all five. The one who was webbing up my entrance certainly hadn't shot any, having been concentrating on blocking off the archway. It had done a decent job; it wasn't up to the standard of a full web, and I could possibly barrel through it, but if I did, I would end up sufficiently tangled and restricted that I wouldn't be able to flee. Apparently that wasn't sufficient for them, though, as the spider was still working on reinforcing it.

With the shower of acid over, the rest of the spiders all kind of... stopped. There was no clicking laughter. None of them charged at me. They just shuffled around a bit, as if unsure what to do next. I did note out of the corner of my eye that another spider swapped position with the one spinning the web, which was interesting. That had the nice implication that they really were out of ammo, but the downside that one of my aggressors now had a full tank again. But still nothing happened.

I'd noted the lack of webbing over the ceiling here. I'd assumed it was something to do with the material, and their silk didn't stick to it, but maybe they couldn't get near the central statue at all? That was... interesting. Which reminded me that I was supposed to be cleansing this shrine, but instead had got it rather heavily spattered with acid. Oops. Hope it still works afterwards. It didn't look damaged to me, as far as I could spare it a glance while trying to keep eyes on eight spiders at once.

More uncomfortable seconds passed in which the spiders continued to not make any move, causing me to burst out laughing again. That certainly agitated them, and the shuffling became considerably more pronounced. The previous web-spinner launched an acid ball, but since I'd noticed their substitution I'd been keeping an eye on it, and dodged easily.

That seemed to be the last straw for one of them, which gingerly took one step forward, then another, paused for a moment, and then, presumably when it didn't get stricken down by holy judgement or something, charged at me.

Without their teleportation, the spiders weren't the most speedy of the monsters I'd encountered. I was still wary of their pair of claws, since I knew they could cut straight through my silk armour, but this one was charging in a straight line and I was holding a spear, so I thrust straight at it. It dodged to the side with impressive dexterity, but I still scored a line down the side of its head, taking out one of its eyes.

The injured spider screeched, and that finally seemed to knock the others out of their hesitation. Six more spiders stepped over the invisible line, and after another brief pause, charged at me. I tried to avoid getting surrounded by backing up against the statue, but I still had seven spiders coming at me from three sides, at least one of which could spray acid at me.

This time their attack wasn't at all coordinated, and I blocked a few claw swipes easily enough with my shield. Their strength was in traps and subterfuge, not a fair fight, and though they had good dexterity and strength, they couldn't translate that into effective melee combat. Despite that, it was seven against one, and with their eight legs they had no trouble dodging my spear thrusts. I would have been better with a long blade; something I could make sweeping motions with, that wouldn't have been so easy for them to dodge.

Novice blocker advanced to level 2

Their numbers worked against them when one tried to sidestep a stab but crashed into its neighbour, bringing both to the ground. I skewered one, but the other five forced me away, and the second got back to its feet before I could take advantage. They'd been calming down since starting their assault, but the death screech of the one I'd just killed shook them back up, which made me laugh again, pushing them all into an outright berserker rage. Even the one that was supposed to be rebuilding the web teleported itself to the ground and joined in the fight.

They stopped dodging. The seven spiders came at me in a storm of claws, apparently deciding that I needed to be dead right now, and not caring how many more of them died in the process. More fool them; I was immortal! I took advantage, dropping my shield, drawing my knife with my off-hand and stabbing one in the head as it raked me with its claws.

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The simple fact was that their claws were too short to deal an immediately fatal blow, and they were limited in how high they could raise their legs. All they could do was cut into my legs and lower torso, and even to do that much they still needed to aim around my chitin plates. I was leaning against the statue, and would hopefully stay upright however many muscles and tendons they shredded. I was making a bet that I could take them all out before I succumbed to blood loss, or was pushed over. Paying no attention to the wounds I was receiving, I stabbed and stabbed with knife and spear, concentrating only on the eradication of the spiders.

One of them still had acid and wasn't so far gone that it had forgotten how to use it. I saw the ball heading for my face and dodged to the side, but couldn't avoid it completely. Some got into one eye.

Pain resistance advanced to level 11
Corrosion tolerance advanced to level 6

If I hadn't had the upgrade to pain resistance, that might have ended the battle. Able to fight on through the burning pain, I took out the last couple of spiders. For all their intelligence, in the end they were fools. Had they fought strategically, refusing to engage me in melee, I doubt I could have taken two of them, let alone eight. Laughter was their weakness, of all things. Reacting 'incorrectly' to their sadistic tendencies annoyed them so much that they had all charged to their deaths.

Spear dabbler advanced to level 8
Spear dabbler advanced to level 9
Dagger dabbler advanced to level 5
Dagger dabbler advanced to level 6
Novice dodger advanced to level 7
Side quest complete: Clear the nest of aranea volito

New side quest: Make an offering to the weakened shrine
You have purged the monsters that once desecrated this shrine, but its power has waned due to the lengthy defilement. Make an offering to restore its full glory and once again bring its blessing back to the surrounding area of dungeon.
Clear conditions: Sacrifice mana crystals worth a minimum of 100 mana to the weakened shrine.
Reward: Restore the biome of the first floor of arx sanctus.

Eep, lots of text. Need to read it all before it disappears. Skill levels, simple enough, can check my status later. Completed quest, but nothing about my reward. Annoying, but again, don't need to deal with it this second. Last part is... another quest? What the heck is a mana crystal? Was the current lack of a biome the reason the large cavern was so sparsely populated? So this is a dungeon, not a cave system? And now I know what it's called, but how many floors are there in total, and what about... AARGH!!! Acid dripped into my other eye!

Forcibly reminded of my current situation, and having read the text already, I decided to pay attention to what was going on around me. I was still leaning against the statue, but my legs were completely non-functional, and it was only a matter of time before gravity noticed. The statue and floor were covered with puddles of blue blood and yellow acid. Or had been, the last time I'd looked. I'd been unexpectedly blinded by residual acid running down my helmet, so I couldn't actually check, but I doubted anyone had cleaned it up in the last few seconds.

Oddly, there wasn't much of my own red blood; my tight armour seemed to be doing a good job of holding my wounds shut, and though my health bar had dropped by half, it was stable. Not that it made much difference. Crippled and blinded, I was going to need to hit the reset switch. The only problem was how I was going to get back to the healing pool.

This was the point at which gravity finally decided to get a wriggle on, and I felt myself slipping sideways. I reflexively stuck out an arm to catch myself before I hit the floor, shoving my hand straight into a puddle of acid. While I'd tried to make gloves from the silk, the combination of thick threads and small fingers meant that I'd not been able to get full coverage without sacrificing dexterity. Keeping maximum dexterity had seemed like a good option at the time. Now that my fingers were once again melting off, not so much.

Corrosion tolerance advanced to level 7

It was nice that skills levelled so fast, but I did wish they'd do more! What was the point of having these skills if they didn't actually stop me melting? Once again; ow! Blind as I was, I didn't know where to go to avoid the puddles of acid. Having paralysed legs and one half-melted hand didn't help either. This was... embarrassing. Did I seriously just defeat eight sadistic spiders, at impossible odds, only to get stranded here, unable to even crawl out? Now what was I supposed to do?! Could I drag myself all the way to the pool with one hand? The spiders had webbed up my entrance... I'd have to try to cut that down one-handed too. Was I even sure which direction my entrance was? Dammit, which direction did I fall in? Where's the statue in relation to me now?

AARGH!!! In my floundering, I'd stuck my other hand into a pool of acid. No way was I cutting down the web now... In desperation, with my fingers melting and already half missing, I grabbed at my knife and, before my fingers melted away completely, slit my own throat.

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