Marrow had been thinking about what to do for a very long time. And then something changed. He could hear noise from beyond the wood that was around him. A scrabbling noise. Something light, with fast feet. And Marrow got curious. This noise… it somehow touched his subconscious.

Marrow slowly raised himself up, which caused all kinds of noise in the tiny closet he was in. First, he bumped his head on a shelve that was too low for a standing skeleton, and then he hit the sides of the closet with his bony knees. But at least none of that hurt, because Marrow did not have nerves – at least not physical ones.

Marrow banged his fists against the wood on the side where he had heard the noise. It caused a satisfying bang, but beyond that not much happened.

So Marrow banged the wood again. And again. And again.

Not that that changed anything. The wood was solid and his fists not particularly strong. After a few more attempts, Marrow decided that it was time to put more force into his strikes. Experimenting with body positions, he figured out that twisting his torso increased the power of his blows. And so he did. Time and again, he hit the wood, and slowly he left some dents.

And then he heard the voice again.

[Skill obtained: Forceful Punch]

Marrow was happy. He did not even have to eat a spider to hear the voice - just punching wood did the trick. So he hit some more, now with dual purpose… to hear the voice again and to find the furry thing. Alas, no more voice for Marrow, despite all the punching.

Many hours later, the wood finally gave way - the whole side of the closet fell apart, and the doors and everything else followed suit. The closet had stood for centuries, but could not withstand this kind of singleminded abuse.

Marrow stepped out of the wreckage and surveyed his surrounding.

There was a lot to observe. Some of it he had seen before – the little cot, the shelve with various bones, skulls, and artifacts, and the chest in the far right corner. But there were definite changes as well. For one, the room was full of spiderwebs, which made Marrow quite happy.

And the floor was rather filthy, with little black-brown things littering the ground that somehow looked rather intriguing to Marrow’s senses. Not as food, but as a sign of those furry things with tails.

But the spiders were right there, and Marrow wanted to hear that voice again. So he started hunting for more of the eight-legged creatures. He approached the first bunch of spider webs and reached into it with his hand. Unlike the web in his closet, this was a lot thicker. And rather than being able to pull out a bunch of spiderweb with his hand, and sift through the mess of little spiderlings, Marrow’s hand actually got stuck in the web.

And it did not take long for the owner of said web to take notice. A gigantic spider, the size of a cat or perhaps a dog scuttled over to the portion of the net that Marrow had foolishly touched. The spider did not hesitate long and immediately attacked by biting into Marrow’s arm. Which did nothing at all.

Marrow tilted his head slightly to the side and looked curiously at the spider. It was the first time that he had seen a spider that big. With a bit of delay, he realized that the spider was trying to harm him, which was totally unacceptable. In fact, even the most stupid skeletons have a degree of self-preservation built into their system – anyone, but their master, attacking them will lead to instinctive defensive countermeasures.

In this case, Marrow had to think for a moment what the appropriate countermeasure might be. After all, the bite had not really hurt the skeleton. That was not particularly surprising since it could not feel pain, but it also had not even scratched Marrow’s bones. The possible responses that came to Marrow’s mind where to either stare at it or bite it back. Since he had put his hand in there to eat a spider in the first place, Marrow figured that he might as well bite it.

So he leaned forward, spread his jaw unnaturally wide, and chomped down on the abdomen of the spider. At first, the chitin developed hairline cracks, and the spider wiggled with all of its eight legs to try and escape. But there was no escaping Marrow’s jaws. He kept on squeezing and ground his jaw back and forth in a sawing motion. The additional strain on the chitin caused it to first crack more visibly and then burst apart, splashing spider innards all over the place, chiefly down Marrow’s bony chin.

Marrow stopped his chewing to wait expectantly… and he was not disappointed.

“Do you want to try to absorb [giant spider] brain? Chance of success: 10 percent.”

Marrow felt a bit warm inside of his bones, which he might have identified as a feeling of satisfaction and perhaps even happiness if he had known of those concepts… and continued to chew.

---------------------------------------------------

“Gamul, slow down. Not all of us are as suited to trudging through hallways covered with debris!” Ikarias shouted.

“Shhhhh, shut up you fool,” Borgar hissed. “There are things down here, we don’t want to alert them!”

“And what things would that be,” Catlyn asked in a rather querulous voice. “All we have seen so far is giant rats, a couple of tiny acid slimes, and a few goblins… not exactly the sign of a high-level dungeon.”

“Will you guys shut up over there?” Gamul shouted back. “I can’t hear anything if you keep on talking that loudly.”

“And why would you need to hear anything, you little drunkard?” Ikarias hollered back.

“Well, excuse me that I like my beer. Do I complain that you only drink hollerberry juice? Do I? And if you keep on shouting, you can take point. You know what? In fact, why don’t you?”

“Will you shut your traps? Are you all bloody beginners?” Borgar was visibly getting annoyed. “We all agreed that this dungeon has potential. It used to be a bloody magic academy a few centuries ago. There will be something here! And where there are magical treasures, there are monsters. That is Moolgar’s law of invariate thruths!”

“Oh, common, you just made that up. There is no such law. That does not even make sense!” Catlyn chuckled.

“Of course, it makes sense. And I have heard about this law somewhere,” Borgar insisted.

Suddenly, Gamul stopped and raised his hand. Immediately, the rest of the party stopped as well and readied their weapons. As much as they liked bantering around, they were professionals. Well, kind of professionals. Even though they had known each other for quite a long time, they were a newly formed adventuring team, as of a few hours earlier. The shiny little white pin in each of their pockets indicated that they were, indeed, part of the professional ranks of monster hunters and treasure seekers.

Gamul raising his hand could mean different things. They had not really worked out a good system of hand signals yet. But a raised hand would mean that either he wanted to say something, or that there was danger ahead. Given that Gamut was never shy about saying whatever he wanted to say, they all expected it to be the latter. So, they waited for Gamut to move or say something. All he did though, was to listen. And now, that everyone else had finally shut up, they were also able to hear something. A crunching noise. And then quiet. After a short moment, they heard some clicking and clacking, as if wood was hitting the ground. Then there was quiet again, and then a loud crunch.

The four mighty adventurers looked nervously at each other and grabbed their weapons tighter. Gamul raised his hammer, a weapon befitting his Dwarven heritage, and cautiously stepped deeper into the hallway. Ikarias had his dagger and a short sword in hand, and quickly fastened his dark cape, ready to hide in the darkness, if the situation demanded, while Borgar quietly stepped to Gamul’s side, at least as quietly as a six foot five guy in heavy ringmail and a somewhat impractical claymore could move. And Catlyn… Catlyn did not do much of anything. She was a mix of catfolk and human, one of the unfortunate demi-humans, neither here nor there. She had a nice staff, with a glittering fake ruby on top, but at the moment all she could think of was to make herself small and stay immobile.

The crunching continued in regular intervals, one of the creepier noises the group had ever heard.

Finally, Gamul and Borgar decided that they could not possibly run away from the first disturbing sound in the dungeon… at the very least they had to figure out what made that noise. They looked at each other, nodded encouragement and, with weapons ready, jumped around the corner. And then they realized two things. The first one was that they had forgotten that Catlyn was the person with the light. The second was that the crunching noise had stopped, which meant that whatever was doing it had noticed them.

“Catlyn!” Gamul urgently whispered.

Nothing.

“Catlyn!” he whispered again, louder.

“By Gamullatra’s tits, Catlyn, get your cat-ass over here, we need light,” Gamul finally bellowed, having lost all patience. It was not as if they had not made plenty of noise before, so Gamul figured it really made no difference.

Gamul and Borgar stared into the darkness, desperately trying to make out any movement, trying to see any sign of danger coming their way. But it was pitch black.

And then the crunching started again.

Gamul noticed how Borgar’s hands started to tremble slightly.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered to Borgar – whispering felt more appropriate, even if it made no difference.

“I am not afraid, this claymore is heavy,” Borgar responded through clenched teeth.

And then finally Catlyn had found the nerves to walk around the corner as well. Light immediately started flooding the hallway, revealing a mess of partially torn spider webs, and dozens of giant spider carapaces littering the ground.

“Giant spiders,” Gamul hissed. “I hate spiders!”

The crunching had stopped the moment Catlyn had lit up the hallway. A heavy silence descended on the adventurers… but then the noise started again. And finally, they could make out the source of the ominous sound.

A humanoid skeleton, with an odd little piece of fur attached to its ribcage, stared at them. And it was munching on a huge spider body. The spider still wiggled around, but it was clear that there was no way for it to escape. And then, its body burst and a flood of innards dropped down the skeleton's jaw, onto its ribcage and down on the floor. The skeleton did not seem done though, because it kept on chewing.

“Skeleton! Attack!” Gamul shouted.

“The undead, defend yourself!” Borgar screamed.

“Eww,” was all Catlyn said, while holding her light crystal in trembling hands, staring at the gory mess dribbling down the empty ribcage of the skeleton.

And Ikarias… well, no one knew where he was at. Some shadow or another, perhaps, or back on his way to the exit.

When Borgar started backing away, claymore at the ready, Catlyn felt her flight instinct kick in, and she began to race down the hallway. Which left Gamul and Borgar in the dark. Gamul immediately backed off, swearing as only a dwarf can swear. He felt a shiver of fear run down his spine – alone, well, almost alone, and in the dark… he did not like his chances.

Crunch

There it was again. The noise. And it was closer!

Gamul vividly imagined the abdomen of the spider popping open and wondered what would happen to himself if the skeleton got its hands, or rather bones, on him. And then he heard footsteps … and they came from behind. Immediately, Gamul swung his hammer around, putting his back against the wall. Surrounded by the undead, alone, in the dark - adrenalin rushed into him, and he started hyperventilating.

“Psst, Gamul, I am back!” A soft voice whispered next to his year.

Gamul yelped a little in surprise and almost dropped his hammer before he realized that it had been Catlyn’s voice.

“By Gamullatra’s ass, you scared the hell out of me,“ Gamul hissed. “But I am sure glad that you are back. Where is Ikarias and what happened to the light?”

“He is a bit further down the hallway, waiting for us. I used [darkvision] to come back and get you and Borgar. Sorry for running helter-skelter like that.”

“Hmpf, you do know that skeletons can see in the dark, right?”

“Oh?” Sheepishly, Catlyn pulled out the light crystal and infused a tiny bit of mana into it. Immediately, the crystal started lighting up and illuminated the hallways about ten yards each direction.

“What are you doing? Cover that light!” Ikarias whispered urgently with a slightly panicked voice from further down the hallway.

“Relax guys, I’ve got it,” Gamul said in a confident voice. “Remember that spell I learned a few days ago?”

“Uhm, a spell? You mean like a new one?” Catlyn asked in a confused voice.

“What are you talking about?” Ikarias asked incredulously. “Do you mean the [sober] spell? How the heck is that going to be useful?”

“Psst, guys, why are you all so noisy?” Borgar whispered.

Gamul shook his head in disgust. “[Turn undead]! I just learned that two days ago, you morons!”

“Hell yeah, I totally forgot!” Ikarias shouted, and immediately came up next to Gamul and Catlyn. Reluctantly, Borgar followed shortly after.

“Besides, it is just one skeleton… right?” Ikarias said.

“You should have seen it though,” Borgar responded. “It has killed dozens of giant spiders… we would be hard-pressed to do the same.”

Gamul ignored the rest of the chatter, and only beckoned Catlyn forward to provide the light he needed. Not that the spell would not work in the dark, but it was better for his nerves to be able to see. He then stepped forward toward the crunching noise, until the light reached the skeleton standing in the hallway, a few steps closer than the previous time they had seen it.

“What is it doing?” Catlyn asked Gamul in a hushed voice.

“I am not sure… it looks like it is investigating the spider web.”

And then they could see the skeleton reach with its bony arm into the web, only to withdraw its hand a moment later, with a big fat spider grabbed by its carapace. The spider struggled to escape, but the skeleton held tight. And then the mouth of the skeleton opened impossibly wide, and it bit, with an audible crunch, into the carapace. And then the grinding noise started.

The four adventurers watched the process with open mouth, mesmerized by the sight, and temporarily forgetting that the skeleton was right in front of them. And then, with a loud pop, the spider burst, and splashed blood and gore all over the skeleton again. Gamul jumped out of his temporary trance and raised his hands to pray for the divine blessing of Gamullatra. The moment he felt the rush of cleansing energy that indicated that the divine potency had entered his body, he cast [Turn undead]. An invisible field of holy energy expanded rapidly into all directions. Expectantly, Gamul waited for the field to hit the skeleton and severe the connection to its creator.

Alas… nothing happened.

And in the meantime, the skeleton turned its head and looked at them.

“It is chewing,” Ikarias whispered. “Why is it chewing?”

“Gamul, how long until your spell takes effect?” Catlyn quietly asked, without letting the skeleton out of her sight.

Gamul stared at the skeleton and, at first, did not respond. Only when Catlyn slightly punched his shoulder, he suddenly jerked and said with a strained voice: “It should have worked instantaneously…”

Suddenly, the skeleton whipped its head around, causing the adventurers to jump and take a step backward. But the skeleton did not look at them. Instead, it seemed to have spotted some movement in the spiderweb and was utterly focused on that.

“It seems to, I don’t know, just ignore us?” Catlyn said in a disbelieving tone. Suddenly brave, she walked toward the skeleton in languid and sinuous movements, betraying her feline ancestry. As she got closer, the skeleton shifted its gaze at her and then it changed. It was a subtle change, hard to describe. But whereas the skeleton initially had a predatory posture, a lethal readiness, it suddenly almost seemed timid. And then, after studying Catlyn for a few more moments and making odd facial movements, which should have been entirely impossible for a skeleton, the skeleton suddenly spun around and raced toward a tiny hole in the wall, slamming headfirst into the stone. It scrabbled with hands and feet for purchase on the floor, trying, in an apparent panic to push its way into a hole that was only a fraction of its size.

Catlyn could not help but burst out laughing, while Gamul, Borgar, and Ikarias just stared in utter and complete bewilderment.