Ar'Kendrithyst

“Can you guys see down here?” Jane asked, tapping ahead of Yetta’s party.

Even with her spider senses and eight watchful eyes, the sunlight of the world above was a very far thing, all the way down here. Jane, Yetta, Dorthy, Cyril, Basil, and Allan, were at least forty kilometers below the towering peaks of Ar’Kendrithyst. Down here, the crystal was kilometers thick and space was at a premium; the gaps between the kendrithyst sometimes only a meter wide.

Yet the land down here was not truly dark; not yet, and certainly not to Jane. The crystal glowed dark purple and darker red; even normal people could eventually adjust to the darkness down here. But most normal people never got the chance. Shadows moved inside the crystal, always waiting, always watching. Monsters lived down here, but they were either the small ones, that were able to move in the cramped quarters, or monsters able to move through the kendrithyst like it was an ocean.

Jane watched those monsters now, deep in the crystal, all around. But the monsters never attacked; they never stuck a single tentacle out of the crystal to swipe at anyone.

The danger down here was compounded by the terrain. If you couldn’t glide through the crystal, you had to walk along the walls, or create your own paths. Jane walked along the walls. She had expended more HP through physical exertion and [Hunter’s Instincts] than [Shadowalk]-sticking to the outside of the crystal, as she guided Yetta and her crew through the maze of the lowest, lower reaches. The occasional [Invisible Rejuvenation] kept Jane’s health high, while her mana never dropped below 2900.

Yetta said, “It’s not that dark.”

Yetta’s party each followed Jane in their own way. The Champion herself glowed with a [Fly] spell, as she moved through the air with the greatest of ease, sticking close to Jane, ruining everyone’s nightvision. But she wasn’t the only one glowing. Allan and Dorthy floated on a dark [Force Platform] Allan had conjured, while Cyril floated on a glittering white cloud of his own, keeping to the center of their formation.

Basil was a brown owl of some sort. He flew completely silent and completely dark, in an easy, lazy way, [Airshape] holding him aloft. Command didn’t know Basil’s Class, but they suspected it was Polymage. Jane almost had questions for him, but now was not the time.

Not when the eyes of Ar’Kendrithyst were upon them, and they were walking into an ambush.

Yetta had her [Cleanse Aura] on right now, too, probably as a precaution against Daydroppers, considering the air didn’t get around much this far down into the city. Thick air flowed around Yetta, touching everything for tens of meters, spilling clean air though tunnels that were not used to movement.

Jane looked forward, saw the danger waiting, and decided that her previous warning about the darkness was not being taken seriously. Jane said, “It’s very warm down here in the lower reaches, isn’t it?”

Yetta looked at Jane. Telepathic conversation fluttered between her and her party, as she said, “It’s warm, but we’re okay.” She asked, “Are you?”

“[Shadowalk] is pretty cooling, all on its own.”

Jane watched Yetta with a backward-facing eye, as she simultaneously scanned ahead, trying to decipher the ambush waiting for them in the open space beyond the tunnel. Yetta gave no indication that she was preparing for anything.

… Jane would just have to trust that Yetta was capable.

Tap tap tap, were the last sounds Jane made, as she fully activated [Hunter’s Instincts] and [Shadowalk], and all her movements turned completely silent. The hair on her legs picked up the faintest vibrations; she knew there was some sort of danger waiting for them in the vast open space just beyond the tunnel; where nothing moved yet violet light poured into the tunnel. But she didn’t quite understand what she was seeing. As soon as she rounded the bend, gliding into the room, Jane [Shadowalk]ed fully into the crystal under her feet, scurrying around the edge, preparing for pain.

The room in front of the dungeon was like two football fields, one tilted and dumping onto the other, the lower one full of kendrithyst shards deep enough to form something of a flat floor, while the larger field above was slanted, save for outcrops of dark crystal here and there. Hangings overhead, like crystal stalactites, gave off a violet glow, casting the room into deep shadows.

Between the shard pit and the slanted part of the room, was a hole; the start of the dungeon. The dungeon was completely dark to Jane’s [Eyes of Magic], because even though it was through the kendrithyst, the tunnel was also full of antirhine. This was Rutile’s sanctum, the Blacksmith, and Jane was very worried about Yetta’s chances. No one ever gave Rutile enough respect as an enemy; antirhine weapons carved through all magic.

And that shard pit looked weird. It was partially invisible to Jane’s [Eyes of Magic]; there was lead in that pit, but why?

Boom boomboom.

The tunnel behind Jane began to collapse. Yetta and her team rushed out of the tunnel, following Jane into the larger room, as the ceiling of the tunnel fully caved in, billowing dust and debris across the much of Yetta’s people. Yetta, Cyril, and Basil spread out as chunks of crystal crashed into the shard pit below. Dorthy and Allan moved in, but not much. They stabilized just outside of the collapsed tunnel, riding Allan’s dark [Force Platform], waiting for something more to happen.

Where the chunks of crystal hit the pit, the shards began to glow, began to swirl, and to Jane’s eyes, it was like a million separate pieces of a scattered monster were coming to life, as threads of power wound through each individual shard of crystal, but not all the way. Something was strange; and Jane thought she knew what it was, when she noticed that the monster’s threads of power which should have been whole and unbroken, were instead dotted; like half the pile of stone shards was blocking her vision.

That was probably exactly it. Rutile made golems; this was not a monster. It was, somehow, a lead golem.

The golem flowed together, rock tumbling over rock; sounding like an avalanche and a groaning, straining beast all at once.

Allan threw two dozen [Force Buzzsaws], gleaming white and black things that ripped through the air, but the golem flexed, bringing together its lead parts against Allan’s spell. The buzzsaw touched the golem only to spark apart into dust and loose mana.

The shard pit fully came together, lifting from the bottom of the ravine like a monster made of stone tentacles, standing upon pillars of itself as it clutched the ceiling. Every single shard was not actually a shard, but a piece of kendrithyst with a ring of antirhine fully encircling what was probably a buffering layer of kendrithyst, and an inner enchanted center.

The golem reached for Yetta, but she moved much too fast for such a slow attack. Yetta casually eyed the failed attack as bits of the golem splashed against the kendrithyst at her back. Yetta flew further out of the way, avoiding the chaotic jumble of half-lead pieces that ricocheted off the wall, half of the golem-parts breaking as they hit the side of the cavern, sending kendrithyst dust and chips of lead into the air.

This wasn’t a very well made golem; but it didn’t have to be. All it had to do was touch one of them, and they were dead. If any of their flight spells failed they would fall into the ravine, into the churning, crushing swirl of stone and lead that was the golem’s base. If that didn’t kill them, all the monster would have to do was to sit down, and any of them would die under tons and tons of lead.

Yetta and Basil flew around the room, distracting the golem with tiny [Force Bolts]; it didn’t seem to care. The golem flexed so that the bolts touched lead; the spells did nothing.

Allan gathered power, ripping fire out of the air, throwing it around the room in steady arcs, igniting the air around the monster, as he flew himself and Dorthy out of range of a counter attack. Allan's spell was an indirect attack, meant to heat the air and thus melt the lead of the golem. It might have worked, if the golem didn’t instantly recognize the threat and swing itself through the airborne spell, shattering the magic sustaining the heat.

Tentacles of smashing stone whipped around the room. Basil dodged a hail of shards that crashed into the wall behind him. Most of that attack slid to the bottom of the room, to rejoin the storm of shards rising back into the air, while the golem was already attacking Cyril. Cyril dodged, but shards clipped the clouds holding the prince in the air; he didn’t fall, the cloud didn’t break, but less of the cloud was there than before. Cyril quickly pumped out a white-gold cloud of magic, that reinforced his flight spell; he suddenly moved a lot faster than before.

But if the lead golem decided to become a hurricane, every single person in the room would die; a [Teleport Lock] hung in the air, pressing against Jane’s consciousness like a bad memory.

Jane could probably make it out, though. [Teleport Lock] didn’t block [Shadowalk].

Yetta yelled, “We’re moving on!” She ignored the hole in the ceiling that led straight up, and the wide, open road at the top of the slanted room. Yetta pointed at the third most obvious way out; a crack in the nearby stone that led to a dark canyon. “Move it, Jane!”

Jane yelled, before the boos from the audience could rival the noise of the golem and anyone had a chance to move to the exit, “Rutile always makes fantastic weapons! It will help you kill Planter!”

The audience of Shades went silent, except for a few cheers; they wanted to see a fight. They wanted blood and death.

The golem became a wave, became a moving mass, crawling up the walls of the room, aiming for all of Yetta's party, all at once.

Dorthy held onto Allan’s force platform as Allan flew around the arena, casting some sort of glowing, minor magic, like he was scattering flying grains of glowing, black rice. A wave of lead-rimmed shards flowed to reach for Allan, dispersing much of the armored mage’s black rice magic, but some of the black rice touched the kendrithyst space behind the lead rims of the golem's body.

The magic links between the shards of the golem vanished as black rice turned into buzzsaws, ripping through the enchanted kendrithyst centers of each piece of the golem. The spell didn’t get far, but it didn’t have to; Allan was chain casting his spell. More black rice filled the air, continually cutting through more and more of the golem, sending more and more of it to the bottom of the ravine; broken and unmoving.

Jane watched, as everyone avoided the golem’s multi-pronged attacks like they were nothing. Allan’s magic did all the work of slowly, methodically, disassembling the golem from the inside out.

It took ten rock crashing minutes, but the lead golem was reduced to actual shards, with little actual difficulty. Cyril had to redo his cloud several times, and a piece of Allan’s force platform came loose and Dorthy had to scramble to keep in the sky, but killing this lead golem, which Jane had no idea how she would even begin to disassemble, was easy for them. Yetta and her people just had to make the decision to actually kill the golem.

That’s probably what made Jane angrier than anything.

It made the people talking in Jane’s mind rather mad, too.

She yelled, “What the fuck! I’ve never even seen an antirhine golem like that, and you guys tear it apart! What the fuck, Allan! Why did you accept that pact! You could have killed that Umbral Wyrm!”

A dozen Shady voices agreed, and Jane realized she fucked up.

Jane yelled out, just as loud, “Nevermind! I don’t need to know.”

That got a round of minor booing out of the Shades.

‘Everything they show is another tactic that Planter can plan against,’ Killzone sent.

Jane felt mortified. Of course Planter could plan against anything he saw; Jane knew this. She just let her anger get the better of her. She tried to salvage the situation, saying, “Maybe Rutile will have the perfect weapon to use against Planter.”

Tiny laughter filled the otherwise silent canyon.

Killzone sent, ‘That might have been good; we’ll find out.’

Yetta glared daggers at Jane, while [Telepathy] bounced around their group. Basil flew closer to the tunnel, like he wanted to go inside. He hovered outside of the dungeon, while the rest of their party adjusted their positions around the room.

The golem in the ravine might have been transformed into dust and debris, but that didn’t stop Allan from feeding buzzsaw rice down into the shardpile, making sure the creature was dead, while they talked amongst themselves.

Jane watched as shapes moved through the dark kendrithyst walls of the room; none of the shapes looked particularly worrisome.

Allan stopped scattering black rice and flew his platform toward the tunnel; Yetta and Cyril followed, with owl-Basil taking up the rear. Dorthy leapt from Allan’s platform, onto the ground in front of the tunnel, just a meter away from the shard pit.

They were going in.

Jane almost cheered! They were going to rescue the hostages!

Violet light errupted into the air, fully illuminating the room, as ribbons of white light flowed out from the tunnel, not touching the antirhine walls as they unfurled in front of Yetta's people. The ribbon lights crawled everywhere, across the ceiling, illuminating the whole of the shard-golem's room.

Above the dungeon tunnel, the ribbons spelled out, “Congratulations! You have a choice! Delve for the hostages, or accept a weapon to use against Planter!”

“Weapon,” Allan said, with zero hesitation.

Jane wanted to scream.

So she did. “Allan! You mother fucker!”

The ribbons of light changed, “If Jane wants to rescue the hostages on her own, she can! I’ll even tone down the difficulty, Shade’s Honor!”

Yetta floated in the center of the room, speaking to Jane, “We will not enter this antirhine dungeon, if we don't have to. We will take the weapon. If you want to risk your life in there, go ahead.” A thin pulse of intent flashed out of Yetta. “The Daydropper here has been killed. We have no reason to venture into certain death. Neither do you, Jane.” She pointed up, at the hole in the ceiling. “We’re going to the next dungeon.”

‘What about us? Are we sending anyone inside?’ Jane asked Command.

Killzone sent, 'We’re having an argument about. If you want to go, you can. Your choice; make it fast.’

Jane decided. She said, “I’m going in. I’ll meet up with you later, Yetta.” She pointed toward the hole in the ceiling that Yetta had indicated. “That’s a dark zone; people don’t come out when they go in there. You want the road over there.” She pointed a long, spidery leg toward the wide, relatively bright road that dumped onto the upper platform of the room. “That is an open path to the Lake. There will be krakens. They appear from the crystal, and from the water.” She asked, “How far away is the next Daydropper nest?”

Yetta looked where Jane had pointed, saying, “About thirty kilometers directly above us.”

Jane quickly said, “That’s likely the Toymaker. Once you reach the Lake, you can head directly for that Daydropper. Expect disguised monsters once you get close to him.”

Yetta stared at Jane, slightly frowning. She said, “Be careful.”

“You too.”

One of the larger spikes of crystal in front of the road out of the room shivered, as lights spelled out, ‘Here’s your prize!’ A compartment in the crystal opened with a ding, revealing a long mace, completely dead to Jane’s [Eyes of Magic]; it was fully antirhine. Jane felt her spidery stomach roil with embarrassment, as the air filled with tiny laughter.

“Antirhine,” said Cyril. “Completely.”

“We’re not taking that.” Yetta decided. “Leave it there.”

Owl-Basil cawed, “Guide fail!”

Dorthy said, “Leave off it, Basil.” She looked to Allan. “Let’s go.”

And just like that, they left.

Jane hung on the wall of the cavern, alone with the dead golem, alone with the antirhine mace, alone with several Shady [Scry] eyes. About a hundred expletives flowed through her mind, but there was work to do. The offical call came down from Killzone; there would be no rescue in this antirhine dungeon unless Jane wanted to do it all by herself. She very much did.

Jane [Shadowalk]ed to the tunnel’s illuminated entrance, stopping just short of where the crystal had been layered with silver-white lead.

And then she looked up, toward the second floor of the room. A short [Shadowalk] brought her in front of the crystal spike that held the mace. The mace was a long rod of some lead compound, maybe three feet long, topped with a spiked ball of more lead, attached to a conveyor belt inside the hollow crystal spike.

She muttered, “Well fuck you guys, I’m going to use it.”

Jane pulled the mace out of its container with one strong spider grip, and felt the world dim a little.

This was not Jane’s first experience handling lead weapons, either as a human, or as a spider. She knew what would happen, and it would happen like this: her [Personal Absorption Ward] would unravel at the point of contacting the lead, and would eventually unravel completely. Jane relied on her [Ward] for a great deal of her defenses, but she was going into a lead dungeon; her [Ward] was as good as gone, anyway. Her [Conjure Armor] would be okay, as long as it didn’t directly touch the lead, but even that was likely to be stripped from her, if the shard golem was any indication of what sorts of traps waited in the dungeon.

Casting external spells would be more difficult; auras were just plain impossible when actually touching lead. Magic, at its base, was mana given form and intent by a mage. Lead removed that intent. Without that intent, magic was just mana, aimlessly floating around, ambient, and nothing more.

Jane shivered a bit, imagining what lead poisoning would look like on Veird, but she had never heard of antirhine-poisoning, so maybe there was some biological thing happening in the background to remove lead from people.

Her imagination took a turn south as she envisioned how bad Rutile’s dungeon could actually be. He probably just dumped buckets of powdered lead on invaders, and then proceeded to smash people between two lead walls. That's what she would do, if she were him.

The good news was that lead didn’t stop internal magic, like [Hunter’s Instincts], and it didn’t rip away HP and MP, though Jane suspected it really should have, if this anti-magic nature of lead was actually natural. [Telepathy] took a small hit to functionality; speaking to Command Center was like talking through static. If there were a lead-shower in this dungeon, [Telepathy] would go away completely.

Jane sighed out. Then she swung the mace around, experimentally.

She looked over the upper ledge of the room, down to the shard pit. An idea began to form.

Jane scurried down the wall, holding the mace in her two front legs, the claws of her back legs latching into the rough crystal. She stopped in front of the dungeon.

The ribbons of light swirling out of the antirhine tunnel, adjusted. Words retracted, leaving ribbons of white to hang just above the antirhine, illuminating the grey walls that led down into danger. The dungeon had absolutely no shadows; but there was no [Shadowalk]ing on lead, anyway.

Hmm.

There were lots of pulped kendrithyst shards and lead pieces, down in that pit. Jane set the mace down beside the dungeon’s entrance. She needed to experiment a bit more with lead, just to make sure her plan was going to work. First, she asked Command Center if what she was about to do would kill her; they responded that it was going to hurt like hell, but it shouldn’t kill her.

Free of the lead mace, Jane [Shadowalk]ed into the pile of kendrithyst shards and shattered lead, and fuck did that hurt! She instantly, almost automatically, retreated right back out of the pile, a bit bloody, but intact. Lead ripped away some of her self, but she could do this. A few [Rejuvenation]s solved her HP issue. To solve the issue of exploring this dungeon, Jane walked out a little ways into the remains of the golem, and started selecting the broken pieces with the least amount of lead on them. To make even less of an issue, she picked the pieces up using [Shadowalk], leaving behind rims of kendrithyst-crusted lead, and leaving her with pure kendrithyst shards.

[Stoneshape] didn’t work well with regard to kendrithyst crystal, but [Shadowalk] allowed Jane to pry off plenty of big-enough pieces from the pile, which she tossed behind her, near to the dungeon entrance. When she had enough, a few hundred pieces or so of clean kendrithyst, she went to the clean pile, and began wrapping them up with spider silk, into groups large enough to make an easy [Shadowalk] target. With a bit of careful engineering, Jane attached four silk sacs to her torso.

She tossed a fifth sac of crystal down into the tunnel. Nothing happened.

For the next part, Jane picked up the lead mace, then began setting up kendrithyst at the dungeon entrance, like she was setting up golf balls. With a hop onto her back four legs, and standing somewhat upright, Jane used the lead mace like a golf club. She began knocking kendrithyst shards down into the dungeon entrance.

Spack! Crack! Ting!

Shards bounced around, making it maybe ten meters down into the tunnel, though a few chipped and hopped far down the way, into the dungeon and out of sight.

Five Shade [Scry] eyes watched Jane the whole time; the majority had moved on to Yetta.

Jane kept clubbing crystal shards down the—

Quick as a thought, Jane threw a [Scry] eye down the tunnel, zipping through the turns, finding out everything she could before—

Someone popped the eye.

That was okay. Jane saw where she had to go. She cast a black and white [Special Ward] down the tunnel, around the bend, past the swinging scythes and over the pit of spikes, above the molten lead, her shadowy light ward breaking down a bit due to the airborne lead, through half of the dungeon, ending directly at the midboss. The [Special Ward] was a twisted, easy-to-[Shadowalk] path through the air.

Which is exactly what Jane did.

She abandoned the mace, abandoned every misdirection she was creating, even the sacs of kendrithyst shards, and leapt right into the middle of a solid kendrithyst room —not a room of lead— right above the mid-boss. Shadows played in the glowing purple walls, but Jane would not test them with a [Shadowalk]; that seemed like a royally bad idea, because the shadows in these walls were definitely monsters waiting to strike. White lights blinked alive around the room. And the mid-boss woke up, right below Jane.

At one point in time, the monster might have been a giant lizard, or maybe an alligator; some kind of threat. It was the size of an elephant but it was skinny. It might have been fast at one point in time, too, but now it was covered in lead scales and its own red blood. It was a creature of antirhine; a mutant, a mistake. Wild hissing came out of the beast as Jane landed upon the monster, but she grabbed on with eight strong legs and jammed her fangs in between the scales covering the monster’s spine. The lizard tried to throw her, it tried to run, but Jane held strong, pumping corrosive venom into the creature.

Jane leapt up and away from the lead on the beast. She cast another black and white lightward into the air and [Shadowalk]ed inside; ripping away a few dozen HP as she went. The lead upon the lizard was soft; some of it had stuck to Jane, but that all went away when she retreated into the shadows. She cast seven more such shadowy [Special Ward]s, dropping from one to the next, hopefully keeping her actual position somewhat unknown.

The monster died, hissing and bleeding. It took thirty seconds to die. That was more than enough time for a few Shade [Scry] eyes to rejoin Jane inside the mid-boss's room.

A tunnel opposite of the entrance broke open, the kendrithyst wall shattering to reveal another tunnel, through an archway that was not there before. Jane’s [Eyes of Magic] saw someone working the kendrithyst in front of her, actively moving the dungeon at their whim; probably Rutile.

Jane did not wait, she did not pause, she threw another two shadowy lightwards down the way, not knowing where to go exactly, but having enough control over the [Special Ward] to make it bounce around down the air-filled space. The shadowards were mainly there to distract from Jane’s [Scry] eye, hiding among the shadows.

There were no lead traps between this room and the boss’s room. It was just a straight-shot crystal hallway, about two hundred meters long through the kendrithyst. The tunnel opened up into an arena, where a pillar of light fell upon several people, each strapped onto a ten meter tall humanoid golem, like they were armor. Blood flowed; the people screamed as the golem moved, recognizing an enemy was approaching.

Jane’s arachnid heart beat hard. She could not help but hiss. She was PISSED.

[Shadowalk] brought her instantly into the room. She quickly took stock of her surroundings as she hung in the air, gravity yet to assert itself, [Hunter’s Instincts] flaring hard, each hair on the exposed parts of her legs telling her everything about the room that her eyes could not.

The large room was an arena carved out of deep-red kendrithyst; wide and sandy in the center, with raised seating all around. As she entered the room, the arena filled with a bright red-orange light. There was no visible way out of the arena except the way Jane came in, but she could leave by diving through the kendrithyst down here, if absolutely necessary. She’d escaped bad situations by diving through the crystal before, instead of staying to the surface like she usually did, but there were monsters in the deep redness of the crystal here, for sure. Maybe even umbral wyrms; they looked long and sinewy enough to be wyrms. The shadows in these red walls looked almost exactly like the wyrm Fallopolis had killed.

Jane didn’t have time to worry about that right now, though; if she had to, she would escape that way, because the entrance to the room had already silently shut behind her. Jane was trapped, and everyone knew it. Some Shady voices cheered her on, while other voices demanded a show. They wanted blood on the sands.

The arena itself was a coliseum-type sandpit, but it was not filled with normal sand; it was filled with magic-dead lead shavings. The humanoid golem standing upon the lead didn’t seem to care about its footing. It wasn’t made of lead itself, but it was fully covered in chainmail that was likely lead-based, because Jane couldn’t see through the chainmail. She couldn’t see through the golem’s weapons, either; one two meter long lead sword, and one lead shield to match.

And the worst part of all, were the people strapped to the golem. Humans, incani, orcol, and dragonkin, each of them still alive, each very naked, they had all been broken and secured to every vulnerable part of the golem; one person wrapped around the head, one person for each upper arm, one person each for the front and back of the torso, two people again for the legs. Seven people in total had been crafted into armor, their bones broken to fit a design created by an enemy of the world.

Jane was livid. Venom sacs filled to dripping, hair stood on ends, as Jane took in every little bit of movement all around her. Jane wanted to kill Rutile in the worst possible way. But she couldn’t. Not today, maybe not ever.

What she could do was maybe, somehow, kill this golem.

Without killing the people.

Two seconds had passed since Jane [Shadowalk]ed into the brightly-lit arena. Gravity finally regained control of her body. She flashed out another shadowy lightward well around the golem, aiming for the other side, to see what else she was working with, if anything. She dipped inside of the floating shadows, flowing around the golem—

The golem kicked lead sand into the air, directly at the shadoward.

Jane came tumbling out of the shadoward, lead sand disintegrating her [Absorption Ward] to nothing, dispersing her [Conjure Armor] into ambient mana. She landed on the lead sands of the arena, naked as a normal shadowspider, defenseless and covered in lead dust. One final sputter of static filled Jane’s telepathic connection to Command Center, and then that was gone. She was on her own.

Jane stood upon sands of anti-magic, facing a ten meter tall golem, with legs and arms like telephone poles and a sword and shield to match. The sword, and likely the shield too, though she couldn’t see that from her perspective, were a part of the golem, jointed to the contraption like all the rest of its joints; in a ball socket joint, under a protective layer of accordion rubber, and draped over with lead chainmail. Jane saw magic sparking under the rubber, under the chain, but could she destroy that covering somehow, and let the lead of the arena destroy the golem from the inside out?

The joints were an obvious weak point to the creation, so they probably weren’t a weakness at all.

But sometimes, weaknesses were exactly what they appeared to be.

The golem took a step back, to stand tall on its half of the arena.

Jane almost attacked, but [Hunter’s Instincts] was still working; that was an internal process, aided by the thousands of sensing hairs on Jane’s spider body, aided even further after her [Conjure Armor] had been dispelled, revealing all of Jane's spider body to the world. Lead sand had gotten in her eyes; she was half blind, but four eyes was still more than enough to gauge her surroundings. [Eyes of Magic] was an internal process, too, and with that, Jane witnessed as the seating of the arena began to fill.

Shades appeared.

Jane watched the new arrivals as she retreated to her side of the arena, rapidly grooming herself, her palps picking out pieces of lead from her always-open eyes. She managed to clear all eight of them by the time the red lights of the arena began to alternately dim and brighten, like the show was going to start soon.

And still, Shades kept appearing.

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Jane was drawing a crowd.

[Telepathy] reconnected Jane to the Command center; she rapidly sent them images of what she was seeing. She was seeing a lot, but voices in her head informed her of who she was seeing.

That one was Tania Webwalker, behind and to the left of Jane’s side of the arena; Jane knew Tania already, though. The Spider Shade was a human woman dressed in white gossamer spider silk; something between lingerie and a queenly dress, with her hair wrapped up in white webbing. Two black shadowspiders, both smaller than Jane, flanked Tania. Tania noticed Jane noticing them, and waved, reserved and with a smirk, like she and her were part of some great conspiracy.

Several meters away from Tania, appeared Fallopolis, eating from a bag of candy.

Jane recognized the Shade known as Porter on the golem’s side of the arena; he was a nondescript orcol of smaller than normal proportions. A meter from Porter sat Gora, the Shade of the Arena; he was an incani dressed in the gold and green motley of a jester.

Four other Shades appeared, and Command Center knew all eighteen of them, along with the one who put on this horror show: Rutile.

Rutile appeared in a flash of black on the stadium seating to Jane’s right, as the red-orange lights of the arena began to brighten to white, fully illuminating the grey-white lead sand, the arena seating, and the bloody golem Jane would have to dismantle. Rutile was a large orcol man with pale, almost-white skin, faintly green, with white hair and holding a large hammer in his right hand. He was decked out in plate armor, black and spiked, that doubled his already large size.

Jane was still frantically cleaning herself, rubbing lead out of her ever-open eyes with her palps, but she knew she was going to get lead sand kicked at her again; probably even as an opening move.

A spotlight appeared on Rutile as he spoke, “A consolation fight! But first, a vote. Unfair, of course, but all the more entertaining for it. Should we decrease the challenge, as it is presented?”

“No,” Jane said.

Murmurs of ‘no?’ filled the room.

More Shade [Scry] eyes started to appear among the stands.

“No!” Tania said, smiling wide.

Fallopolis grinned, adding, “No.”

A few more ‘No’s filled the air.

Rutile asked, “Should we increase the challenge?”

Jane remained silent.

Porter yelled, “Just show us your damn golem already!”

Gora, the Shade of the Arena, joined in, “Golems are shit monsters! They don’t even grant experience!”

“Shut the fuck up, Gora!” Rutile scowled, saying, “Shouldn’t you be entertaining the Champion with your own stupid no-experience challenges?”

“My arena gives life experience! Much more valuable than actual experience. Besides!” Gora looked to the air, saying, “They’re still at Toymaker’s pavili—” The gold and green motley Shade paused, then said, “Whoops!” as he vanished in a shattering of shadows.

Rutile announced, “No increases or decreases! Live and die tackling the challenge you chose.”

The audience lighting vanished, leaving Jane alone on the grey sands of an antirhine arena.

The golem began to move, slowly. One step forward, shield pointed at Jane, sword held back; ready to strike. Jane moved to the right, the hairs on her legs and her eight bright eyes taking in everything around her. The Shades were watching, silently, and they might even stay that wa—

The golem burst into movement, scattering lead sand, sword swinging forward, whistling the air as people screamed on the golem’s body.

Jane dashed, a spider trying not to be squished, kicking up grey sands, the internal activation of [Hunter’s Instincts] alerting her well before the golem kicked sand at her. Jane tried to [Blink] away, but the spell didn’t work; the lead was too close. Jane would have kicked herself for trying to cast [Blink] if she had a millisecond to spare.

Grey sands cascaded over Jane, but she raised her palps over her eyes fast enough to block most of the lead sand. She raced left with enough speed to avoid the swinging sword. Her [Telepathy] cut out; she was on her own. The golem did not retract its sword to ready another strike, but instead swung left, while the sword was still in the sands. Lead cascaded into the air.

Jane realized something she should have already guessed: It was a golem, it didn’t move like a normal person with normal bone structure.

She leapt straight up. The golem’s sword followed her, the sharp edge aiming at her body.

She caught the edge of the sword, her spider feet digging into the metal, her Strength giving her purchase as the golem adjusted to the new weight on its weapon. Jane did not hang on to the sword for long; the golem was trying to smash her between its sword and its shield. Jane dipped down, almost casually rolling away from the attack, attaching strong silk to the sword as she fell.

The golem transferred into a downward stroke, right on top of Jane, but she was already moving. Swiftly, she ran behind the golem. Just as quick, the golem spun on its torso. It didn’t need to move its legs to twist its entire upper body backwards. It pulled its sword in close, spinning hard at Jane.

Air moved well before the golem did, though, and Jane felt every movement all around her, from the pained breathing of the people strapped to the golem, to the Shades watching, to the golem’s line of attack.

There was a simplicity to the construction. The golem moved in straight lines, only altering course a little in order to maximize the power of its impacts. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was a start. She backed up, shedding lead dust from her body as she moved; kicking up just as much as she left behind.

The golem’s sword followed, the chainmail of the creation jangling, the people attached to it crying in pain. Jane leapt; the golem followed her trajectory. She grabbed the sword again, then prepared to move as only a spider could. The golem’s shield crashed down. Jane grabbed the shield, quickly transferring to the space behind the shield.

The golem's sword went through the shield, destroying the shield, trying to get to her—

“What the hell, Rutile!” Porter yelled, “What—”

They bickered, while Jane moved faster. The sword cleaved through the shield, cutting the forearm that held the great lead barrier. The golem tossed its sword wide, fully removing the broken shield from itself. The lead shield crashed to the sands as Jane left behind threads on the arm formerly holding the shield, jumping to the ground, moving around the golem. The golem tried to cut her as she dodged around its legs, scurrying fast. Whatever mistake of programming made the golem attack its own shield, was not present to make the golem attack its own legs.

Jane threaded the air with spider silk, racing around the golem. It didn’t work. The golem noticed. It stood wide, breaking the threads attached to its arms and half wrapped around its legs.

A tiny plan formed in Jane’s mind. She leapt into the air, grabbing the sword as it swept low then up to meet her. She set down thread, her strongest kind, as the golem tried to smash her between the sword and its nonexistent shield. Jane moved a little bit, still holding on to the sword, letting the severed forearm strike the sword, right beside her. She quickly wrapped her thickest thread around the forearm, and around the sword.

She was burning through a lot of HP, but [Invisible Rejuvenation] and constant Meditation helped to alleviate some of that burn. [Invisible Rejuvenation] was thankfully internal, exactly like [Hunter’s Instincts].

The golem must have had a seizure, or something, because it stopped moving, it stopped trying to attack. Jane didn’t stop, though. She wrapped more thread, thicker, joining the sword and the forearm together—

“You win!” Rutile called out, as the lights in the arena came all the way back on. “Leave the failure alone.”

Jane instantly leapt away from what she was doing and furiously began grooming herself, in preparation for whatever might come next. [Telepathy] came back, full of angry and then suddenly hopeful voices.

Tania was laughing, loud and full. Fallopolis was smiling.

Gora reappeared beside Porter. He instantly cursed about missed fights and obvious outcomes.

Rutile spoke, “Choose: Hostages, or the actual weapon to use against Planter.”

“Hostages,” Jane instantly said.

Rutile huffed.

Tania laughed louder, but tried to speak through her mirth, “That’s— ha hA! RUTILE, you dumbass! Ha ha! Of course she’s going to pick the hostages! That’s WHAT SHE DOES!”

Fallopolis smiled, asking, “You’re not really this far gone? Are you? Rutile?”

The atmosphere of the entire arena changed; Jane felt it in her [Hunter’s Instincts]. In one small statement from Fallopolis, metaphorical blood filled the air. Fallopolis had cut deep. She kept cutting.

“This was your golem to use against Atunir’sChampion?” Fallopolis asked.

The room was silent, except for Jane still furiously cleaning herself and the pained breathing of the hostages. If she needed to, she would cut them away from the golem with [Shadowalk], dragging them with her into the shadows, doing a lot of damage, but they might still survive.

Rutile said, “This whole room is primed with exploding antirhine. If you attack me, you’re going to die first, Fallopolis.”

Tania glared. “Jane here performed perfectly! Honor your agreement!”

“Tania is right.” Fallopolis said, “Let her take the hostages away. She doesn’t need to see what happens next.” The grandmotherly Shade looked to Jane, and said, “Detach as many as yoOOu caAAn, sweEEty! The groOOwn ups neeEEd to talk. AloOOne.”

Jane cast a shadoward into the air, and, prepared for pain, [Shadowalk]ed up to the hostages. Half her HP and at least two legs ripped away, splashing black blood onto the lead-white sands. She dropped into the air above the golem. With a quick re[Polymorph], Jane was human for a moment, then a spider again, with all eight legs intact. She precisely positioned herself onto the front of the golem, directly onto one of the hostages, who suddenly started screaming again.

Jane tried to be as calm as possible, as she said, “I’m here to take you back to Spur. Please— Please be quiet and focus on the legs I’m putting on you.” The frontal hostage wouldn’t stop screaming as Jane positioned herself as quickly as she could, stretching around the unmoving lead golem like a nightmare game of three dimensional twister. “Please, if you can, just accept the link I am giving to you, for [Teleport].”

An argument grew in volume all around Jane; she needed to get gone.

But the itch of a [Teleport Lock] still tickled the base of Jane’s arachnid skull.

Jane tried, “Please release your [Teleport Lock], whoever you are.”

‘Be very careful, Jane.’ Killzone sent, ‘Watch what you say.’

Rutile erupted, “No! You know what? We’re going again. I have another—”

Tania argued, “No! She passed your stupid trial! You failed! Your golems failed! You would have failed even worse against the Champion!”

The screaming hostage stopped screaming, suddenly. He was foaming at the mouth, now. Jane touched a [Rejuvenation] at him, but it didn’t help. She would have to leave him behind; [Teleport] required the teleportee to have a conscious connection with the teleporter—

A hand of one of the hostages gripped Jane’s leg, hard as they could, but not hard at all. A voice struggled to whisper, “We have antirhine in— in our bones. We can’t [Teleport].”

Jane steeled herself. She would have to [Shadowalk] them first.

“We’re going again!” Rutile shouted. The golem began to move—

Jane [Shadowalk]ed, pulling six people along with her, leaving so much of each of them behind.

She raced away as fast as she could, through the shadoward—

The shadoward broke, dumping her onto the kendrithyst room of the mid boss; the putrifying corpse of the lead lizard still dissolving in Jane’s Decay venom, leaving dull, powdery plates of untouched lead in a pile. Jane held the living remains of six people in her spider claws. Frantically, she cast more shadowards, then raced along through the darkness.

Up the tunnels. Casting more shadowards as she went—

The shadowards broke; dumping Jane and her precious living cargo into antirhine tunnels. Someone was actively breaking her shadowards; she was not accidentally casting a shadoward at lead.

Her eight eyes revealed the culprit. Porter was breaking her shadowards. The smaller than average orcol smiled at her, floating in the air in the middle of the antirhine tunnel, four yards away.

Jane escaped through a seven-part [Shadoward] that led in every direction at once.

A notification appeared; Jane read it with one of her eight eyes.