Chapter 17: Chapter Seventeen: House Spider

They had finally made it to the top of the tree trunk. Qube sat on the ground next to the beautiful Save Point, gripping the ground as tightly as she could. Finally, finally, there were no more platforms. She looked at the iron door next to her.

 

...Please let there be no more platforms.

 

After a while, the Chosen One finished interacting with the Save Point and approached the door.

 

“Iron door. Hmm. Okay, ready up gang, I think we’ve got a Boss fight behind this door.” He said, looking unexpectedly serious.

 

Qube and Sewer Bard looked at each other. Nope, neither of them knew what a Boss fight was. It sounded pretty ominous though. Did that mean the other forest creature’s they’d encountered had been employees of whoever was behind that door? What could the Boss have been paying them to do?

 

Regardless of what work they had been doing, Qube felt that the Boss was going to be extremely mad that they’d murdered all their workers. She only hoped that the Chosen One was wrong, and they could resolve this without fighting.

 

Although they probably shouldn’t mention that they’d looted all of the Boss’s underlings' bodies for coins and random items. That would probably be upsetting.

 

The Chosen One squared his shoulders, gave the Save Point one last touch, and then flung open the iron door.

 

Qube’s vision swam, and she clutched her head as she fought down her nausea. Ghostly afterimages of the Chosen One, Sewer Bard and herself drifted in front of her, before everything snapped back into place.

 

“You know what they say, third time’s the charm!” The Chosen One said cheerfully. Qube grabbed at the door frame to steady herself. What - what had just happened? Was this the aura of a Boss? She felt as if she’d been shattered and then glued back together. She staggered after the Chosen One and Sewer Bard, who was looking fine. It couldn’t be that Sewer Bard was better able to withstand the power of an employer than her, was it?

 

No. That was literally impossible.

 

Qube straightened herself up and instantly cast [Lesser Shield] on the Chosen One. It was time to engage in a workplace dispute, and by the scroll the Chosen One would not find her lacking!

 

---

 

The room they walked into was dark, with lit torches flickering from the wooden walls. The canopy of the tree was just above them, the dim light coming through them shifting as the wind blew the leaves. The dappled light roamed across the dirt floor. What was dirt doing so high up the tree? Qube wondered. Before she could continue that line of thought, the leaves above them parted and a giant spider dropped down into the middle of the room.

 

This was not the coy abomination that was Sexy Screamy Spider Lady. Instead this was akin to a house that had decided to grow legs and fangs. Fangs that dripped with a very venomous looking fluid, that sprayed towards them as the Boss hissed.

 

It did not appear that they would be able to talk this out. Still, she had to try. She opened her mouth to begin negotiations when the Chosen One cut her off.

 

“Don’t bother, it can’t understand you.” He said. Qube looked at him, stunned. They were so in sync as Childhood Companions, he knew what she was going to say before she even said it! She smiled proudly at the Hero, just as he dodged out of the way of the giant Boss trying to bite his head off.

 

“Get on Sewer Bard’s shoulders.” The Chosen One shouted as he rolled in circles around the giant spider. The giant spider ignored Qube and Sewer Bard, instead choosing to continue to try and bite the Chosen One. Sewer Bard and Qube looked at each other, startled, before Sewer Bard hurriedly knelt and boosted Qube onto his shoulders. Qube wobbled a bit as she stood on his shoulders: this was even harder than it had looked when the Chosen One was riding her around.

 

“I’m about to bring her down, once she hits the ground, get onto her back and climb towards the big red spot on her butt.” The Chosen One managed to yell even though he was still rolling in circles.

 

“Uh, fair Healer, which way is the spider?” Qube looked down and saw that her robe was covering Sewer Bard’s face. She felt his head start to tilt up - and she clamped her feet around his head.

 

“Don’t look up!” She yelled.

 

Unfortunately that overset her delicate balance just as the Chosen One jumped to his feet and snapped his magical bent stick at a very irritated looking sore on the house-sized spider’s abdomen. The giant spider hit the dirt floor with a bone-jarring thump, and both Sewer Bard and Qube were launched up into the air, Qube using her momentum to spring off Sewer Bard’s shoulders and slam into the spider’s side.

 

She started to fall before clutching the arm sized hairs sprouting out of the spider, quickly pulling herself up towards the top of the horrifying arachnid. The flesh beneath her pulsated, pumping out a huge amount of heat.

 

“Oh I hate this.” Qube said quietly to herself, another giant hollow bristle shattering when she gripped it too hard. “Oh I hate this, hate this, I hate this, this is the worst.”

 

And then she felt something grab her ankle.

 

Qube screamed and started wildly kicking at whatever was holding her. She lost her grip and started to slide down the body of the spider only to be caught by - Sewer Bard!

 

“I always knew you would fall for me one day.” He winked. It would have looked a lot cooler if his face wasn’t covered in Qube’s footprints.

 

“The only reason I fell was because you grabbed my ankle!” Qube yelled, resisting the urge to continue kicking her ‘saviour’.

 

“I just needed a little boost to help me get onto the spider too.” Sewer Bard said shamelessly. “I would never consent to allow such a delicate blossom as yourself to engage in such a dangerous act on your own.”

 

Qube gave him a withering look.

 

“I don’t have time for this.” She said as she wriggled free of his grip and began climbing again. She quickly outpaced Sewer Bard, mostly because she kept using his face as a launching pad whenever he got too close.

 

Hey, she was a Healer, not a Saint.

 

She got to the top of the spider just as it shook itself and rose up off the ground. 

 

“What are you two doing? Stop messing about!” The Chosen One shouted. Qube grit her teeth as she crab-crawled to the spider’s giant red butt. As she finally crested the peak of the abdomen she stared at the throbbing red spot before her with horror. It was like someone had implanted a giant red light into the poor thing’s butt. No wonder this Boss was so enraged!

 

“Hey!” The Chosen One stopped rolling and stood. “Catch!” And he flung his magic bent stick directly at Qube.

 

Qube caught it almost instinctively.  As soon as she grabbed it it tried to rip itself out her hands and return to the Chosen One.

 

“No!” Qube said to it sternly. It jittered for a second and then yanked with such force that Qube would have been pulled off the spider if Sewer Bard hadn’t grabbed her by the waist. With a kick like an enraged donkey the magic bent stick … tore itself in two.

 

No, that’s inaccurate. More simply, one second there was one magical bent stick fighting Qube and then the next there were two magical bent sticks, one held by a Qube now falling onto her butt, and the other happily flying back to the Chosen One.

 

Qube didn’t have time to examine the bent stick… mother? Child? she now held, as the Chosen One yelled up at her “Hit the red spot with it!”

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Flipping onto her hands and knees Qube crawled towards the infected red butt light and smashed the magical bent stick into it.

The house sized spider slammed to the ground, twitching and quivering. The Chosen One quickly rolled himself over to its face and started attacking it with his Sacred Sword. He didn’t appear to be actually cutting it, but the spider was very vocally making known its displeasure at such an activity. After about thirty seconds it started to pull itself back up.

 

“Hit it again!” The Chosen One yelled. Another butt whack later the spider was back on the floor.

 

Somehow this all felt very wrong to Qube. Granted, she’d never fought a giant spider before, but she was pretty sure that epic showdowns were supposed to involve less butt slapping and forward somersaults and a bit more actual combat.

 

Still, she couldn’t argue with the results. Less than five minutes after they had entered the Boss’s office, the giant spider rolled over onto its back, nearly crushing Qube and Sewer Bard, curled up its legs, and dissolved into three pedestals.

 

Qube blinked. Had… had those pedestals been inside of it the entire time?

 

When she got back to the village, she was going to have to ask Alderman some very pointed questions about what happened when you died, and where all these items kept coming from. Were the items what bodies naturally turned into? Was it only monsters who dissolved when they died? What did the different items mean? Qube put her hand on her stomach.

 

Did… did she have a bag of coins inside of her? 

 

Were all coins… made by killing creatures?

 

While Qube was having another existential crisis, the Chosen One was reading the inscriptions on the pedestals.

 

“Looks like we can only choose one item.” He said, interrupting Sewer Bard’s idle strumming and Qube’s breakdown. He paused, then grinned. “Or only I can choose one.”

 

He gestured Qube over to the right pedestal, which had an inscription of a potion vial on it, and Sewer Bard over to the left pedestal with a carrot on it. He remained in front of the middle pedestal, inscribed with a sword.

 

“Oh the count of three, put your hands on the - wait. Lemme check something.” The Chosen One went back to the iron door they’d entered through and tried to open it. It didn’t budge. “Okay. No save scumming allowed. We only get one shot at this.” He returned to his pedestal. “Oh the count of three, both of you put your hands on the inscription.”

 

“So one, two, and then we put our hands on it on three? Or one, two, three and then we touch it?” Qube asked.

 

“...On three.” The Chosen One said. “Now-”

 

“I just wanted to be sure.” Qube explained.

 

“Yup, that’s fine, on three. One-”

 

“Otherwise I might have missed it.”

 

“ONE TWO THREE GO!” The Chosen One shouted. The three of them slammed their hands on the inscriptions.

 

“I put my hand on it on Go, do you think that matter-”

 

The spell entered Qube’s mind.

 

It’s difficult to describe the sensation of learning a new spell. There are several ways to do it, same as learning new sword fighting techniques or becoming stronger. By far the fastest was by Bestowal.

 

Utterly by coincidence it was also the most painful.

 

The spell, released by a Mage’s touch, leapt up off of the inscription and burrowed into Qube’s brain, drilling deep into her mana memory and unfolding itself. The silvery light of Qube’s mana flared around her briefly, before settling back down, nestling against the new spell now lodged within her knowledge.

 

She saw the Chosen One glow golden, his new technique no doubt now settled into his muscle memory, enabling him to use the new technique with the practised ease of a professional. 

 

She had no idea what Sewer Bard had had Bestowed on him though. By the time she looked at him any effects had already faded, and he was just standing in front of his pedestal, looking his normal beautiful self. Qube was insanely curious to find out what the other two had been Bestowed with, but there was no way she would ever dare broach such a taboo subject.

 

“So, I got a technique that lets me [Parry] with my sword. What did you two get?” The Chosen One asked.

 

Qube went bright pink at his boldness, while even Sewer Bard looked shocked at the Hero’s audacity.

 

“I-I don’t really think we should be talking about such things in public!” Qube gasped, scandalised. The three of them stood awkwardly for a moment in the empty room.

 

“Your modesty does you great credit.” Sewer Bard earnestly said to Qube.

 

“I got [Heal].” Qube immediately announced. The Chosen One frowned.

 

“You already had healing.” He said.

 

“No, that was [Lesser Healing]. This is stronger, and only takes a bit more mana to cast.” Qube wasn’t entirely sure how the Bestowal process gave her that information, but there was a reason only high level Mages could inscribe Bestowals.

 

The Chosen One and Qube both turned and looked at Sewer Bard. Under the pressure of their shameless airing of their skills, he crumbled.

 

“I got [Second Wind]. It instantly restores all my stamina. I also feel like I have more now.” He mumbled. After a few seconds his facial expression changed, and he gave a smirk that was filthy enough it should have been illegal. He opened his mouth to say something to the Chosen One, saw Qube, and closed his mouth with a snap.

 

The three pedestals dissolved, and before them a sparkling doorway opened.

 

Qube eyed it doubtfully. Was this also part of the spider?

 

“All right! Time to get some epic loot.” The Chosen One said, and stepped through the doorway.

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