A Soldier's Life

Chapter 151

Chapter 151

Spiders. Of course, it would be spiders. The room looked to have a high ceiling, maybe twenty feet. The strands dominated the long room, making seeing to the other side difficult. The webbing also created lots of shadows and corners for spiders to hide in.

Other than the sticky-looking webs vibrating slightly, I could not see a single spider. Maveith also confirmed but had bad news with his observation, “I cannot see any movement but the thickness of the strands,” he paused, “they have to be very large spiders.” Shit, that did not even occur to me. The glistening strands were as thick as my wrist.

“Maybe we should try the other corridor,” I offered to the goliath.

Maveith sucked on his teeth; his lips were still purple from the blueberries. “This is the third room we have not entered. Fourth, if you add the dark room,” he said slowly in consideration. “We cannot avoid every room, Eryk. Spiders are not too difficult.”

“We will check the last corridor first,” I said as a compromise. “Then try one of the rooms.”

We returned to the Y intersection and followed the other corridor. Maveith immediately got excited as we approached the end of the corridor. I was focused on the thick, black, oily pools scattered through a long wide room. The reflecting river of light from the ceiling made the pools seem to move. Maveith’s excitement was due to the gold statue at the room’s far end. I don’t think the dungeon could have been more obvious that it was a trap. My eyes focused on the statue, an elf wielding a sword.

The statue was gold, and there were no monsters in sight. It would be easy to get close, move it into my dimensional space, and leave. This was probably a safe room, too. That made sense, as only a safe room would have a golden statue. Maveith bumped me as he stepped past into the room. My eyes looked up at the goliath to yell at him for trying to get to the statue first. As soon as my focus left the statue, a fog lifted from my mind.

I grabbed the back of Maveith’s leather armor and yanked him hard, pulling him out of the room. He had only taken a single step inside, and I was fortunate he had not expected my yank. Unfortunately, he stepped back onto my boot, which caused me to fall backward, followed by Maveith. Having a large, odorous goliath fall on top of you is unpleasant.

His weight knocked the air from me, and I was pressed into the floor uncomfortably. “Maveith,” I grunted, “it is a trap. The statue is affecting your mind! Do not look at it!”

When Maveith removed his considerable weight from me, I focused on the chamber floor, healing my knee that had been strained from his weight. The oil slicks on the floor were stretching toward us in amorphous limbs. They reached the archway to the room and flattened against an invisible barrier, unable to leave.

“What the hell is that!” I said while scuttling back and standing. I reminded Maveith, “Do not look at the statue.” If I had been alone, I might have walked into the room oblivious to the danger.

Maveith shielded his eyes to just look down at the roiling black ooze. “I do not know. Maybe an ooze. Never heard of a black ooze before.” The black elastic mass gave up trying to pass into the corridor and returned to its puddle further in the chamber. I counted seven of the creatures, and two attacked Maveith as soon as he had entered.

I recalled my time in the sewers of Macha, “Are they the same thing as slimes? We saw those in the sewers of Macha.”

Maveith shook his head, turning away from the room. “Slimes are harmless in comparison to oozes. Oozes move faster, and once they grapple you, they climb over your body and force themselves into every orifice on your body. Then they digest you for the inside out.”

Imagining dying that way was not pleasant. “I think we will not enter this room either. Spider room?” I asked the gray-skinned man, and he gave a curt nod. We quickly returned to the last room.

Nothing had changed in the fifteen minutes we had been gone. We both stood there, and I considered all the rooms we had encountered so far. Every room was extremely dangerous for the unsuspecting dungeon delver. I was beginning to have doubts about our survivability. It only took one mistake, and it would be the end for us.

I took out an apple and tried to throw it into the room. When it passed the archway, it fell rapidly to the stone floor and rolled a few feet, touching the anchor point of one of the strands. All the strands vibrated slightly quicker before settling.

“Would that be a problem?” I asked, neither confirming nor denying. Void magic seemed to be what people thought my power came from after seeing it.

Maveith seemed to consider, “Void mages are regulated just as much as necromancers.” He stated, not answering my question. “I think all void mages in the Telhian Empire need to be in service to the Emperor.”

“Well, can you keep my secret?” I asked, still not offering him the complete truth.

“I am not Telhian,” the large man stated.

I nodded, thinking that was the best I was going to get from him. “I can only do this once,” I pointed at the spider. “It takes me about two hours to recover enough aether to do it again.” Maybe I was giving him too much information, but we were going to be fighting together for a time in this dungeon.

Maveith’s mind was still turning, “Is that how you killed the female manticore?” His eyes suddenly went wide, “And the wyvern!” It had only taken Maveith minutes to piece everything together.

“Yes. Do you want this short sword?” I held up the spider-themed weapon. “What do you think the spider was eating to stay alive?”

Maveith’s focus gradually came back to the conversation, “Gargantuan spiders can hibernate for years. If there are any egg sacs here, we should destroy them. This one was just an adolescent; they can get much larger after years of molting.”

We searched the room but did not find any egg sacs or molted exoskeletons. The room also had no exits. It looked like we were not going to solve the mystery of the spider chamber. I sent the spider blade to my dimensional space after Maveith declined it.

I was a little unhappy that Maveith appeared more wary about me as we left. “We should rest. We can head back to the safe room where we entered,” I suggested.

“We can stop and collect more blueberries,” Maveith nodded, licking his lips.

Two elven children were seated among the bushes as we approached the room. The shapeshifters had been revived. It had been over a day since we had killed them. “Maveith, I still need about an hour before I can do my trick again.”

The two elves walked to the entrance, the girl’s eyes narrowing at me accusatorily. “Looks like they are back to play again.”

I was completely taken off guard, “Wait, you remember us?”

© Copyrighted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne

No Permission is given to translate, copy, repost or alter to an audio format of this original work of fiction. If you are reading this on a site that is not my Patreon, , or , it has been stolen without my permission and violates DMCA. Remember, this work is the result of my creative effort and is protected by copyright law. Removal or altering of this notification is an acknowledgment you are aware you are in violation of DMCA.