Godsforsaken

Chapter 22: Terror of the Depths

“So what?" Alisha said. “Maybe the map is wrong?”

“That's the thing," I said. “So far this map has been staggeringly accurate. It shows a level of detail I've never seen before.”

“Maybe the two tunnels meet back up again later so they didn't bother drawing two tunnels on the map," Selene suggested.

I bit my lip. “I rather suspect one of them is new. Depending on what's down it, that might be the reason why all those travelers have gone missing.”

“That makes an unnerving amount of sense," Athena said.

“Can you use that weird knowledge power to tell which tunnel is the right one?" I asked her.

She shook her head. “Already tried it. It only works if there is a living person who knows the answer I'm looking for.”

“Oh, so all the people who might know are dead," I translated. “Lovely.”

“It's a coin flip," Athena said. “Just pick a tunnel at random and we'll be fine, Tailor.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What's that supposed to mean?” I shook it off. “Whatever. I guess we pick the right-hand one.”

“How do you figure?" Alisha said.

“The left-hand one is the one that runs along the river so it stands to reason that the right one is the one that appeared later because something dug it," I explained. “The tunnel is supposed to run parallel to the river until we reach the underworld.”

“Wait," Athena said, “if you think the right-hand one is the new one why do you want to go down there? I thought we want to avoid danger, not run into it.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “People have died to whatever is down there. We're adventurers. Taking care of dangerous monsters that threaten people is what we do.”

“If you recall we're on a rather important mission right now," Athena snapped back. “I'd rather we didn't end up in some monster's stomach. It would be bad for your health and I'd just end up back on Olympus where a gaggle of goblins is no doubt waiting to jump me.”

“Fine," I said. “Wait up here if you're so scared. I'm not letting more people get killed by whatever is down this tunnel.” I paused. I was doing it again, playing her stupid games and ignoring my women because of it. “What about you ladies? What do you think?”

“We should be strong enough to deal with whatever is down there, unlike all the other people who came down here," Selene said. “If we can get rid of the danger, we should.”

“Agreed," Yume said. “We've been getting complacent. A monster that has already succeeded in killing competent adventurers is just what we need to face in order to truly test our new powers.”

“We can't let some nameless horror prey on the citizens," Anna said. “Never mind that nameless horrors tend to break down into very rare ingredients.”

I snorted.

“I couldn't very well call myself a cleric if I didn't do my best to push back the darkness wherever I find it," Alisha said.

I nodded at them. “And there you have it," I said to Athena. “So feel free to wait while we take care of business. Maybe you can find some other suckers to help you if we die down there.”

And without another word I turned and walked down the tunnel.

For a few moments I only heard four pairs of boots following me but after a moment a fifth set of footsteps joined them.

“Coming along after all?" I asked without turning around.

“Fuck you, Tailor," she hissed. “You're more likely to survive if you have me along.”

“Careful there," I said. “That almost sounded like you care for us.”

“Fuck. You.”

I decided to stop teasing her for the moment, even though messing with her was really helping me take my mind off what lay in front of us. Of course for all we knew we were taking the correct path and the other one lead to whatever monster had been attacking the travelers, but I was getting a bad feeling about this place. Not the bad feeling Alisha and Selene would get with their Sense Evil skill but just an old-fashioned bad feeling, the kind that left the hairs on my forearms standing on end.

We had been walking down the tunnel for at least half an hour when I realized that my movements were beginning to feel more sluggish. I pulled out a poison-detecting magic item but it didn't react. And yet despite that, each step took a little more effort than the one before until I almost stumbled.

To my surprise the one who seemed the most worried about that was Athena. “What happened?" she asked, concern in her voice.

“I tripped, is all," I said.

“You never trip," she said with absolute conviction.

“How would you know that?" I asked. “You know what, never mind.” I turned around and it took a monumental effort to lift my boot. I frowned and muttered: “What the fuck?”

I tore my boot free, knelt down and then pulled out a glowstone, illuminating the ground in front of me. It took me almost a minute before I realized what was going on.

“Well how about that," I muttered.

“What is it?" Alisha asked.

I donned a glove and then reached down to pull loose some of the stuff that had made me trip. It took a Qi Burst to yank it loose, which told me everything I needed to know. Once I had it I held it up.

“What's that?" Alisha asked.

“Webbing," I said. “I didn't notice it at first because it's black, not white like a normal spider's web. But these are definitely strands of webbing. That's why lifting our feet is so hard. Our boots are sticking to this stuff. And it's getting denser the deeper we go.”

Selene stared at me worriedly and then knelt down to confirm what I was saying.

“So a spider monster smart enough to dig out a tunnel to lay a trap for mortals," Athena summarized. “Lovely.”

“We don't actually know if it's a spider," I said. “There's other bugs that can produce thread. And we don't know for sure that it's only one monster. For all we know there might be an entire colony down there.”

“Not helping," Selene muttered. Oh right, she had an issue with bugs, didn't she?

“So what do we do?" Alisha asked.

I looked over at Yume and pulled out Helios Edge. “Let's see if those threads are flammable, shall we?”

She smiled. “Great idea.”

And so we called forth flame, her with her magic and me with my sword, sending swathes of blue and orange flame at the threads. They were indeed flammable, the threads catching fire that rushed down toward the source. They weren't just on the ground but on the walls and ceiling as well. It was easy to see because those burned just as well. Eventually a ring of fire was traveling ahead of us, burning the threads as we walked in its wake. Instead of our boots sticking to the ground they only collected more and more soot now.

And so we went, the ring of fire growing brighter and brighter as the density of the webs it was burning through kept increasing. If we hadn't burned them we would have likely gotten stuck like flies. Of course, if we could have already gotten stuck here then that meant that whatever was lurking in this tunnel had to occasionally come all the way up here to check up on its web.

It suddenly occurred to me that there might be a person stuck in the web in front of us. I was worried about burning them for a moment but given how quickly the flames devoured the threads there was no way a person stuck to the threads would suffer anything more than minor burns before the flames had rushed past them.

Sadly the only sign of life we found was an assortment of pans and knives as well as a few steel weapons. I guessed an adventurer had been digested so thoroughly that only these metal items had survived the process. Charming.

Soon the ring of fire widened and we came to a chamber much larger than the rest of the tunnels. And might I say how glad I was for that ring of fire as it allowed us to get a good long look at the monster whose lair we had stumbled into.

Imagine a spider. No, not one of those icky tiny things you might find in your bath at night, the one your girlfriend might yell for you to come and squash. I mean a proper spider, the one that makes you go looking for a heavy boot you can be sure will squash it in one strike because the thought of that thing surviving and crawling away is just too much.

Now give that spider a couple of nasty additions like a fleshy, pinkish underside to its abdomen and three wickedly sharp stingers dripping venom surrounding the spinneret. Now scale that spider up to a size where even a giantess wouldn't even shriek and call her boyfriend but would just run for her life.

That's what we were looking at.

The thing was glossy black, except for the joints that were a sickly bright green color. Its eight eyes were that same bright green and glowed with a faint luminescence. It was hard to say just how big the thing was, hunched over in its chamber as it was, but I would have estimated the main body to be about thirty feet from the icky wriggly mouth parts to the stingers. Did I mention the stingers? Three stingers, each the size of a dragon's fang, arranged around the spinneret like some bizarre claw and each dripping a viscous green fluid that I was certain I didn't want to get anywhere near my skin.

And then there were the legs. So far I'd always thought spiders with hairy legs were the nastiest but this thing proved me wrong. Its legs were smooth and glossy, with not a hair in sight, and each was tapered to a wickedly sharp point. And thanks to the beast's sheer size each one of them was big enough to give a cavalry lance penis envy.

“Whatever god created this thing must really hate us," Anna muttered.

I glanced back at the women and saw varying shades of horror on their faces. Selene, of course, was the worst off. She didn't even look disgusted anymore. She was just pale as a sheet, her face completely blank.

“So," Alisha said, “any plans?”

I bit my lip. Before I could say much the beast's eyes already fixated on me. So I chucked a rock at its eyes, not with a Qi Burst to hurt it but just to piss it off so it would focus on me, and it obliged, stabbing out with one of its long legs as I ran away from the rest of the group as I thought. I had to keep dodging pokes from the legs as I yelled out: “Yume, phantom step, then try to use your Qi. Anna, Alisha, aim for the eyes. Selene, go for the legs. Athena...” I dodged another leg as I considered but I just couldn't come up with anything. “Just... do whatever!”

And then I baited another leg thrust, waited for it to sink a leg into the ground and then swung my sword at it with a Qi Burst. I'd cut clean through oak trees with that trick so there was no way this wouldn't...

*TINK*

Helios Edge bounced off, throwing me completely off balance, both physically and mentally. Physically the impact jarred my entire upper body, throwing me off, forcing me to concentrate on not stumbling and then avoiding its follow-up attacks. Mentally the moment completely threw me. The sword was enchanted for sharpness and armor-piercing and I'd yet to see anything it couldn't carve through with a Qi Burst. There were only two possibilities. Either this thing's shell was so tough that even a Qi Burst performed with a legendary weapon couldn't destroy it or the beast had some sort of ability that made enchantments and magic less effective.

Another three legs came at me in rapid succession and I knew I wouldn't be able to avoid all of them in time when Athena's voice rang out:

“Stand tall! Aegis Shield!”

A barrier shaped like an aspis, a shield used primarily by followers of the Olympians, sprang to life in front of me and this time it was the beast's attack that bounced off.

I blinked at it. This was a divine miracle. The miracles that clerics could use channeled the power of a deity but mortals weren't perfect conduits. A god could only send so much of their power into any one of their vessels. But this miracle hadn't been channeled through a cleric. This was a miracle that had come directly from a goddess herself, with no loss or dilution.

“Now!" Athena shouted and I nodded, then pulled out my mace and rushed forward, the shield vanishing as I passed through it. I charged up a Qi Burst with the mace and then swung it through a horizontal attack that struck one of the legs.

Where my sword had bounced off the mace struck true and the leg I'd hit exploded in a shower of green bug guts. The mace hadn't been enchanted. It was merely a heavy steel affair that could strike with a monstrous amount of force. It lent credence to my theory that the beast might be resistant to magic, which was further confirmed when I saw a barrage of air lances from Alisha strike the spider right in the eyes and do absolutely nothing.

Yume had been charging up one of her Qi infused fire snakes but when she saw how little effect Alisha's spell had had she dissipated it, put her sword away and used one of her Qi techniques. She used a flash step to appear right underneath the monster and then struck its thorax with an open palm. There was a massive WHOOMP that echoed through the chamber and the entire monster was flung a foot into the air. When it crashed down with another godawful noise the part of the carapace Yume had struck had a huge dent in it.

The beast shrieked. I didn't even know spiders could shriek but it let out an unholy shriek that made all of us cover our ears. Just as we were distracted the beast started throwing a tantrum, stomping with its remaining seven limbs and lurching forward to snap at me with its enormous maw full of razor-sharp mouth parts. That bite attack missed, thank the gods, thanks to Yume's phantom step spell, but as I scrambled to avoid the stabbing legs I was caught with no way to dodge all of them and one of them caught me in the side, pinning me to the ground like a butterfly.

“Motherfucker!" I howled in pain. I knew enough about my own body to know that it hadn't hit anything vital but that was a small comfort when I was pinned to the ground by a monster that had another six pointy legs to stab me with. Not to mention that just because the leg had missed my gut that didn't mean I wouldn't bleed out if I was left untreated, not that that was a worry when I was either going to get killed much sooner or get healed by Alisha before it could become an issue.

I tried to grab the limb and find purchase to yank it out but it was too smooth and my hands kept sliding away.

But then I heard a loud war horn followed by the unmistakable sound of Selene's ice storm miracle activating.

“Never falter," Athena intoned, “Warrior's Resolve!”

Instantly the pain I was feeling fell away and a cool calm descended upon me. I wasn't tired, I was hyper-focused, able to concentrate without the distraction of my mangled body getting in the way. At the same time the power of Selene's war horn miracle settled inside me, strength and martial pride energizing me.

I saw Yume flitting about, distracting the spider monster and drawing its attention, giving me time to free myself as Selene charged the part of the beast that wasn't currently being assaulted by an icy gale, swinging her mace in a Qi Burst to dent the carapace around its mouth. The beast tried to snap at Selene but an arrow from Anna took out one of its eight eyes, making it flinch away.

With all of them doing their best I knew I had to do the same. I gathered my power and used a Qi Burst to slam my hammer into the leg pinning me down. The strike tore the wound in my stomach open a little wider but all I felt through the miracles was a twinge of discomfort and with the beast's weight no longer resting on the leg I was able to pull the stump out without much trouble. Immediately I began calling forth Qi to heal myself but before I could manage it Alisha had already cast her miracle on me, the wound rushing to seal back up.

I got up, intending to smash something else important when I saw the beast catch Selene and ram those three stingers into her stomach. The breastplate stopped two but the third struck her below its protection, the viscous green fluid pumping into her belly.

I roared in fury and did something very stupid. I used a flash step to appear right next to the beast's abdomen, then layered a Qi Burst into another Qi Burst and then used both to ram Helios Edge into its fleshy underbelly. The lance of fire that accompanied thrusting attacks with the weapon shot out inside the beast's body, rupturing its fleshy parts and dousing Selene and me in bug guts. From her swollen belly it had also clearly squeezed more of the gunk into her wound.

I grabbed her and flash stepped to safety before I knelt down, intending to squeeze the gunk out of her wound. But the exhaustion of all those Qi techniques in such a short amount of time caught up with me and I almost doubled over. Thanks to the two miracles and my newly expanded elixir sea it only lasted for a moment before I could pull her breastplate aside.

Her tummy was swollen and at the center of it was a nasty open wound leaking green gunk. Neither the wound nor her stomach looked purple or infected though and I frowned for a moment before I remembered her moon sapphire, the little charm we both wore that protected from poisons and curses.

“This is going to suck," I told her as I gently laid a hand on her stomach.

“Just get it over with," she hissed.

I pressed down and the green gunk came flowing out of her wound, the fluid the same consistency as pus but with a vile bright green color that made my stomach churn.

Selene's face was twisted up and I could tell she was close to vomiting from the pain.

Once I had squeezed out everything I could I doused the wound with some of the universal antidote Anna had brewed up for us with ingredients from the Crystal Crown's dungeon and when I was done with that I heard Alisha chanting her healing miracle.

Soon enough the wound was gone entirely and only a star-shaped scar remained of the whole ordeal.

I turned back to the fight and saw that Yume and Anna were holding their own now that the monster was hobbled. The beast was already missing an eye, three legs, a good portion of its mouth parts and a large part of its abdomen.

“Ready to finish this?" I asked as I held out a hand to pull Selene up.

“Yeah, let's," she said and grabbed my hand before I hoisted her up.

We both rushed up to the spider monster and I noticed how sluggish it was compared to before. Clearly what we'd done to it hadn't just been superficial damage. Even better, Yume and Anna kept peppering it with attacks, Anna with crystal shards aimed at the joints and fleshy bits and Yume with punches amplified by Qi that cracked its carapace wherever they landed.

Even Alisha had finally figured out a way to participate despite her magic being ineffective against the beast. She was conjuring up her minor barrier miracle to intercept the spider legs so that Anna and Yume could devote that much more time to actually hitting the beast rather than dodging its attacks.

I rushed up to one of the beast's remaining legs, charged a Qi Burst, and cracked it off the body in a single savage strike. A moment later I heard a second crack and saw that Selene had just done the same thing I had.

I had assumed that with more than half of its limbs missing it would keel over and die but clearly despite slowing down it was still going strong. In fact, after Selene and I had amputated two more legs it reared back on the remaining ones and then spat something nasty at us. It caught Athena off guard and Alisha didn't have time to cast her Protective Warmth miracle either but the elf did manage to interpose a minor barrier miracle between us and the spider before the spit hit and it sizzled against the barrier, clearly caustic. I supposed this was the same stuff it had used to melt that poor adventurer down to only his metal items.

Either way, the beast was clearly not quite as smart as I'd initially believed because when its acid splattered harmlessly against the barrier it simply spat up more of the stuff. Unlike me Alisha clearly hadn't overestimated its intelligence and so when it spat up the second helping of acid she was ready and conjured up a gust of wind that sent the acid right back into its face.

It shrieked again, even louder this time if that was possible, as the acid ate through its carapace, creating a nice open spot that wasn't blocked by the magic resistant shell. Because considering how much damage my fire lance had inflicted once inside the monster it was clearly this glossy black shell that was keeping the magic from working properly.

So once the acid had stopped hissing and bubbling but before the spider could calm down enough to go on the offensive again I rushed in and rammed Helios Edge into the exposed gunk that now made up its face, sending another fire lance into its body and finally, finally it let out a final shudder and then curled up.

“That... was rough," I wheezed out.

“Understatement," Selene groaned. “Fuck me, my abs still feel sore.”

“What happened there?" Alisha asked me. “My magic didn't do anything, your sword bounced off...”

“It was clearly much tougher than anything we've been used to," I said. “But there was something about its shell. This wasn't normal.”

“It gorged itself on Erebos gems," Athena said, making us all look at her.

“I can't say I've ever heard of those," I said.

“You wouldn't have," she said. “They're extremely rare on the surface. They're a special type of gemstone mined in the underworld and this in-between area we're in. They repel magic. They're normally worked into charms and this spider clearly ate a lot of them. That's what the bright green color in its joints was about.”

“So you knew it was immune to magic?" I asked. It wasn't an accusation but she clearly took it as one.

“At first I thought the green was only part of its pattern but after seeing it ignore the armor-piercing enchantment of a legendary weapon and shrug off the spells of a very gifted mage it really could only have been the effect of Erebos gemstone.”

“I see," I said. “Well, good to know. If we run into anything else with bright green patterns we'll know not to rely on magic and enchantments.”

“Do you have some dismantling gems left?" Anna asked. Dismantling gems were canned spells that could be chucked at corpses to disassemble them into individual parts, very useful for dealing with enormous bodies. I'd bought a bunch to chuck at the bosses of the Crystal Crown's dungeon and they'd saved us days of work.

“Bought new ones just in case," I told her, “but would that even work? It was clearly immune to magic.”

“It will work so long as you do not hit its shell,” Athena informed us.

I nodded in appreciation, unwilling to thank her with words, before I dug through around my bag of holding and tossed Anna a gem, which she promptly threw at the spider's body.

One of the most convenient side effects of dismantling gems was that they would at least partially repair whatever damage the creature had suffered while being killed. In this case it managed to restore the stingers and the spinneret I'd blown to pieces, which was great since they were probably the most valuable part of the entire beast. Or they would have been if the beast hadn't glutted itself on these crystals. A quick look with my appraiser's loupe revealed that Athena had been right. The pieces of carapace were visibly threaded through with thin veins of the stuff and armor built out of it would confer magic resistance to the wearer. Funnily enough, the dismantling gem had worked in taking it apart despite the Erebos gems but the cuts it had placed had all run parallel to the green veins, never crossing through them. So yes, the Erebos gems were able to overpower the dismantling gem's power but the spell was smart enough to work around them.

Luckily, the beast had clearly had a few more of these gems in its stomach because there were a few small gems in a small pile for us to pick up and, sure enough, my loupe informed me that they were indeed Erebos gemstone.

So in the end we walked away from that encounter with a couple of magic repelling gems, magic resistant carapace, three stingers complete with venom glands, the sac the spider kept its acid spit in, its spinneret and at least a ton of gooey spider flesh we all decided to leave behind. Oh, and the knowledge that nobody else would end up eaten by this thing.

In the end the little excursion cost us a few hours but even with the delay I was glad we'd done it. I'd expected Athena to complain again but...

“So, was it really that bad that we took time out of our schedule to deal with this thing?" I asked her as we walked down the proper tunnel this time.

She stayed silent for long enough that I thought she wasn't going to answer before she finally said: “Over the course of the next thirty days this beast would have killed at least forty people. I can't say I'm happy that we risked dying when my kin need us but I also can't say I'm upset that we saved all those people.”

“Huh," I said. “I didn't think you gave a damn about anyone but the Olympians.”

“Fuck you, Tailor," she said.