Looking around, I found myself on the southwest tower of the trapezoid of towers that bracketed the gate. All of the towers I could see were unmanned, so I took my time to get the lay of the land. The bridge I had come from lead up to the gates from the south, and the two towers north of me were at least one story taller than the one I was on. I assumed each one would have two ballistae like this tower, and if they all fired a five foot long bolt like these apparently did, the amount of firepower they could bring to bear on an assaulting army would be devastating. Eight bolts firing almost parallel down the bridge you are forced to walk along, with no room to dodge? No thank you.

Some time in the past, the corner tower to the west of mine had partially collapsed, allowing me to see a few the ruins within. The portion that had fallen had taken out what must have been the stables, judging from the few stalls I could see that had survived. Following the wall north of that was what I assumed to be a large smithy, as it had three separate chimneys in a line. Continuing to spin clockwise, I saw the three tiers of the main keep. Each one got progressively smaller, and had six minarets on each of the corners. I could vaguely make out some form of crystal at the top of the minarets, but couldn’t figure out anything else as they had no mana flowing to them or stored within.

Looking almost straight down, I could see the walkway the guard was patrolling, that had to cover the room I originally started in. Immediately north of that gigantic portcullis was a staging area that could also double as a killing field, as behind it was another portcullis. The enclosed courtyard could easily come under fire from the four towers and their connecting crenelated walkways. I was beginning to think the only way this citadel would ever fall would be to treachery from within.

I could barely see the eastern corner tower from my perch, but looking between the two eastern gate towers I could see another building. The door to it was slightly sunk into the ground, and I assumed there would be several levels underground. I couldn’t see any other guards patrolling, or anything else of interest, so I headed back down the tower and started walking along the wall towards the western tower.

Walking up, I craned my neck to see if there was anything inside the tower, but couldn’t due to the angles involved. Feeling like it would be better safe than sorry, I entered stealth before walking in the door. The inside was fairly simple. A circular room, filled with weapon racks that had seen better days, while the central pillar was partially hollow, and contained a spiral staircase. Each full revolution of the staircase opened up into a new level, most of them being living style quarters. I thoroughly explored each one, but the soldiers that lived here either took everything with them when they abandoned it or were incredibly poor. There were several books that were so aged that a simple touch disintegrated the pages, spare utensils that had started as wood but the ravages of time had petrified, and rusted caps from steel toed shoes.

Seven levels of the same before I finally came to the base of the gash in the tower. I saw a few strands of spiderweb here and there, but for the most part the level was more of the same. At least, until I got closer to the destruction. What looked like something had smashed through from a distance was very wrong, as the stone appeared to have been melted in places. There was no residual magic energy, so whatever had done this was either a purely physical process or had long since been completed. Eight more levels had holes in the wall, and the way it tapered to a point at the top gave the massive gash a somewhat teardrop shape. I looked out the hole in the wall at the top of the gash, by now far enough above the compound to see how it looked, but couldn’t make out much detail. The biggest structure was the keep itself, and from this angle looked like two hexagons sharing the same center, with a large blob of something in the exact center. Definitely worth checking out once I made it all the way back down. I slowly crept up one more flight of stairs, and saw that I had reached the top level. Through the doorway in the core, I could see it was open air and had several support columns for the roof. I didn’t get much further, as the door was covered in a gigantic spiderweb, with cords as thick as my fingers.

Like most sane people, I wasn’t thrilled with spiders. Don’t get me wrong, I won’t go out of my way to do anything to them so long as they stay outside and leave me the inside. I think it is a very fair division of the world, they get theirs and I get mine. Anyway, I needed a way to deal with the two outcomes this could entail. First possibility: There is a giant broodmother up here and she will release a swarm of tiny creepy crawlies who will kill me with a thousand little bites. Simple counter, take two of the large jugs of pyrophoria potion, and hang them from an eyebolt in the ceiling. Send the rope down a few steps to another eyebolt, just waiting for me to run by and cut it.

Second possibility: There is a queen and several royal guard type spiders up there. Best case scenario, I manage to draw several of the guards off into the staircase. I would then burn them like the smaller horde, but I would need to hold them at bay for a while. In order to do that, I put two eyebolts on the left side of the wall as you are ascending, one at the top and one near the bottom. I put a third one midway between them on the right side. I loosened the ends of the bladed wire trap I had used with the goblins, and hooked those to the eyebolts on the left. The rest of the coiled wire I left around the frame it came on, unspooling just enough to reach the opposite eyebolt. That put two bladed wires across the hallway, and there was enough of a gap on the left that I could hop through without slowing down too much. Hopefully I would then be able to turn and hold the guards off as they burned.

Traps set, I headed up to the doorway and burned the webbing away with some liberal splashes of pyrophoria potion. I had to use three just to get enough out of the way to be useful, but I figured a secure line of retreat would be worth it. “Odd.” I thought to myself when I didn’t find any other webbing on the other side of the door. “I figured whatever made this would use it as an alarm system of some sort.” Slowly stepping forward, I checked above me and to the sides as rapidly as I could, finding nothing. No webbing, no signs of mana, no traps. Moving counterclockwise, as I didn’t want the wall to get in the way of any of my swings, I slowly circled the pillar. At a quarter of a turn, I started seeing webbing between the columns at the edge of the floor. At halfway around, I found the source.

Heroic skeletal drider abomination

Lvl 38

A fusion of a dark elf hero and her lifelong pet spider, this abomination is the stuff of nightmares. The hairy carapace left by the gigantic tarantula is so sensitive it can feel the breath of enemies from 30 feet away. The upper body of the dark elf hero has been fused to the head of her former pet, and now uses the two front legs as a spare set of arms with a spike on each end formed from her former leg bones. Kill this with extreme prejudice.

I was frozen in terror. The entire time I was reading the description, she merely sat still and stared at me, green flames in both the eyes of the dark elf and the spider. I couldn’t see the mana core, it was most likely hidden somewhere in the spider. The head of the spider was at my chest height, and in some macabre parody of life it started rubbing its mandibles together as they stared at me. She reached down to affectionately pet the side of her spider’s head, startling me out of my stupor and letting me notice the two blades at her hips. Since I had no chance of surprising her, I figured I might as well try some diplomacy.

“He, he, hellllllo there.” I stuttered. “Do you ha, have fa fa free wwwilll?” At my question, she tilted her head, then gave a ‘so-so’ gesture with her hand. Ok, I could work with that. Exhaling in relief, I continued. “Do you want me to destroy this existence?” Nodding yes. “Will you be force to attack me if I attack you?” More nods. Damn. “Did you cause the destruction of this tower?” Yes. “Magic?” No. “Venom from your spider?” Yes. Shiiiiit. As I thought of what else to add, the spider started rapidly tapping its legs. “Is, it getting ready to attack?” Yes. I backed off, maintaining eye contact, and as soon as that broke I booked it towards the exit as fast as I could. I could hear the skittering of feet behind me, and redoubled my effort. My feet slipped out from underneath me as I tried to corner into the stairwell, and I felt the swish of air right where my neck used to be. I rolled away, hearing a double thunk as those front legs of the spider slammed into the floor where I used to stand.

Blindly pulling a potion from my inventory, I flung what I hoped was a pyrophoria potion at her face only to realize that it was acid when a sword cleaved it neatly in two. It did buy me some time to grab an actual pyrophoria potion, and fling that at the face of the spider. It niftily caught the potion in its mandibles, but I was already diving into the stairwell and scrambling down it as fast as I could. I was slow, as I felt a burning line cut down my back as a hairy leg caught me with a slash. I stopped just out of reach of the legs, as it flailed trying to catch me.

Breathing heavily, I downed a health potion. That one slash had taken about 15% of my health, and I wasn’t going to risk dying here. As I was trying to formulate a plan of attack, the drow head of the abomination poked her head into the stairwell and stared at me, before trying to force her way in there. The spider head would easily fit, but it was a struggle to get the abdomen in. I pulled out my crossbow, and aimed right at her face. She immediately crossed her swords, and I raised my weapon and fired at one of the jugs suspended above her body. The pot shattered, drenching her body in burning liquid right were her drow half met the spider.

“SKREEEEEEEEE!!!”

Slapping my hands on my ears, I had no idea spiders could scream like that. The intensity of the flames caused the second pot to fall, but it bounced off a leg and shattered on a wall, only getting a little bit of liquid to splash onto the creature. Of course, added flames caused it to immediately panic, and I noticed that the hairs on its head and legs were burning merrily. The upper body was trying to put out fires, and I darted in with my hammer scythe looking to do as much damage as possible.

“[Keen edge].” I cried, slashing at one of the weaponized legs. Still being ignored in favor of putting out the flames, I cut straight through it and managed to knick the second one. Some foul smelling green liquid burst from the severed limb, and between the rotten meat smell of the liquid and the burning hair of the spider, I had to back off to prevent me from vomiting. As I was taking deep breaths of blessedly clean air, the spider’s thrashing finally paid off. Smashing the drow skeleton on the top of the doorway, it managed to back its bulk out of the flame and escape. I moved so that I was halfway between the levels, and started making some hand holds so that I could eventually start working on removing the wall. I had zero intentions of walking straight into a trap, as I knew the drider would be waiting to ambush me as soon as I came waltzing through the only entrance.

I took my time, making sure that the mana blades I used only cut through the masonry between the stones, and as soon as I had one free I would immediately put it in my inventory. I pulled out alternating rows of three bricks, then four, and back to three. By the time I had a hole big enough for me to slide through, I had 21 bricks in my inventory. Slipping into the level, I slowly crept forward to see if I had been noticed.

Coming around the bend in the pillar, I saw something that made me so very happy that I had decided to make my own entrance. The spider was in the strike position, front legs high in the air ready to spear downward. The drow had both blades drawn, and was also ready with weapons high ready to use the force of gravity to add extra power to her strike. Now time for tough decisions. Do I leap onto the back of the spider now that it is lowered, attacking the elf portion? Or do I take out some of the legs in the hopes of crippling it? It was at least down a leg on one side, making things just slightly easier.

Not wanting to test the flexibility of elves, I opted for the legs along the already damaged right side. I started with an overhand angled slash, and the first strike cut cleanly through the still target. As the drider started turning, I yelled out, “[Keen edge]!” and used a backhanded slash to shorten the second leg on the side. That was all I had time for, as the spider let out a squeal of rage and slammed me with a backhand of its own, using its weaponized front leg. I flew backward, sliding for a few feet on my back.

As I struggled to catch my breath and got to my feet, the drider started an attack that had me worried. The spider had lifted its one mandible and remaining front leg, and they were pointing immediately in front of and above its head. The drow portion also had her blades pointing at the same spot, and a roiling ball of black mana was growing. As soon as the drow head popped up to look at me, I threw myself to the side as hard as I could, barely missing the blob of dark energy that struck right where I had just been standing. I watched in awe for a second as the stone simply liquefied. There was no acidic hiss, no grinding sounds, it just liquefied and splattered down a level. I looked back in awe at the drider, and took a spider headbutt to the chest as she had charged me in my moment of distraction.

I stumbled backwards, managing to keep my feet, and a flail of my weapon deflected the leg that was aiming to spear me in the forehead just enough that it drew a painful line across the side of my head instead. Snarling in anger, I let out a wordless cry as I started exchanging slashes with the creature. I dodged just enough to take glancing blows, and focused all my fury on the spider head, which soon gave way under the barrage of attacks. As the drider slumped down, unable to control its remaining legs, I backed off a bit to drink several health potions. Getting lost in battle like that was incredibly dangerous, as I had dropped down to under a third of my health.

Panting to let my stamina recover, I had a stare down with the much calmer drow. “You follow Lolth, right?” At her nod, I continued. “Well, if she is watching, then she should know how well you battled. Out of respect, I am not going to give you an honorable death.” At her head tilt, I kept explaining. “You are a warrior of Lolth, who is well known for her trickery. Even with half of your resurrected body disabled, I am assuming you have multiple ways to lure me in and kill me. So I am going to attack from blind spots, and not give you any chance to turn the tides.”

My little spiel seemed to revitalize the drow, as she straightened up and took as much of a battle stance as she could. “That’s the spirit. Never give up, never surrender.” I started circling, and once I got almost directly behind her she started spinning in a desperate bid to keep me in her sight. That was my clue to pull out my crossbow and shoot her in the base of the spine with a smasher bolt, repeating that five times before the vertebrae cracked enough that she couldn’t turn anymore. “[Keen edge].” I said, before rushing in and decapitating her body in a smooth strike.

Divine attention garnered!

Congratulations and condolences mortal, for you have garnered the attention of Lolth, Queen of Spiders and Goddess of the Drow. Not many draw her eye, and even fewer enjoy her attentions once they have done so. For giving one of her fallen heroes a death worthy of a drow, and reminding her of her heritage, Lolth smiles on you. She has also charged you with drawing out the death of the necromancer who dared to corrupt her hero for as long as possible.

Quest

Success

Failure

Draw out the death of the necromancer to show them the error of their ways. Minimum time is ten minutes.

???

Reputation with Lolth and dark elves will drop to hatred. Reputation gains with dark elf faction will be halved.

Shit! Seriously? Damn meddling gods. At least it was something I was already going to be partly doing. At least it is only a prolong the battle quest, and I don’t have to torture him like I know Lolth would truly want. Shaking my head, I looted the body. I was surprised to have received her twin blades.

Herald of the Coming Night’s Blades

These twin orichalcum and mithril scimitars were the visual representation of the Herald of the Coming Night, a hero of Lolth who disappeared mysteriously centuries ago. In a fit of mad genius, the blacksmith who created these used a San Mai technique to give it an orichalcum edge with a mithril backing.. As orichalcum can’t conduct mana, these made the perfect mage slaying weapons, as the swords can be used to literally slice through magic attacks. The mithril backbone has been enchanted to both increase durability as well as transfer some of the lifeforce of the victim to the wielder. The cruel barbs along the spine enhance bleeding damage.

Lifeforce vampire: 40% of damage done returned to wielder as healing.

90% chance to cause bleeding damage

+75% damage to mages

Spell killer: Can be used to cut through spell forms.

Damage: 1000-1250 Slashing

Bleed damage: 75 per second for ten seconds, stackable x10

Durability: 74,192/100,000

Dexterity 65%

Dual wield 0%

Holy shit, these were legendary swords. Oh, how I wish I were a swordsman with the dual wield skill, these would go into a vault until I was strong enough to use them. Into the inventory with you my beauties, we will find something special to do with you eventually.

Walking over to the webbing where I initially found the drider, I saw a chest buried within. Popping a few pyrophoria potions to burn away the webbing, and I opened it up to see what else I had gotten. Several pristinely cut jewels, including three diamonds the size of my fist. There was a skill book for a dual wield skill called Bloody Harvest, which just sounded like a fantastic move. The book I was most interested in, however, was called A treatise on poison immunity. It wasn’t a skill book, but it looked like it described a painful way to gain full poison immunity. You had to have a partner, and the work would take about a week. You gradually increased the dose of poison in the blood, starting with a weak paralytic poison and working your way up to something called Death’s Knell.

I looked around for anything else, but the rest of the room was empty. I looked out the window, trying to get a better view of the rest of the compound. To the north of me, the wall passed just beyond the tower I was in until it merged into the side of the cavern. There was a large circle in the courtyard beyond the blacksmiths, which I assumed would be a well. The eastern side of the courtyard seemed to be taken up by that building I could barely see from my first attempt, but it looked like it was a few floors in height and took up the entire length of the cavern wall. Spying done, I headed down to the base level of the tower, intending to finish exploring this half of the compound before I called it quits for the night.