The two warrior spiders fresh from their eggs were each about the size of a horse. Their chiton was jet black and had a nasty sheen to it, and their eyes shimmered with a red hue. Like the lesser warriors, they too had large blades instead of front limbs. Except where the warriors had blades like machetes, these guys had blades the size of my whole body. This made them appear in equal measure lopsided, and terrifying.

Unlike the drones, these warriors showed a basic understanding of tactics. When I showed that I could attack from the door, they waited for me to enter before sealing me in. When they thought they might be defeated, they got reinforcements. Even now, they refused to rush me. The warriors slowly moved, attempting to encircle me.

I had 82 mana left, and while it was tempting to prepare another ultimate attack, I felt like I needed to save it for any possible healing I might need. I would first try and take them down by hand, supplementing my attacks with water blades if I needed to. For now, it was time to move. I didn’t want the spiders to have the initiative in combat, so I was going to strike first. As always, the rule of thumb when attacking multiple people was first to attack healers, then ranged combatants, then weaklings, then the boss. Following that order, I needed to take out the lesser warriors first. Then I could devote all of my attention to the big boys.

The four lesser warriors advanced first, followed by their larger counterparts. They were evenly spaced in front of me, coming in two straight lines to attempt encirclement. I decided to take out the warrior on the far left first.

Lashing out in a burst of speed fueled by flight, I used a spearing claw attack to try and pierce the warriors head. It attempted to quickly dodge to the left, but I was quicker. My claws reached just fine, and the extra weight and penetration my gauntlet provided let me drive my hand through its nasty little head, perforating its brain.

I ripped my hand out slinging the innards of the spider in an arc over its comrades and had to immediately throw myself backward. When I lunged, the other arachnids did not remain idle. They all pounced, trying to take a chunk out of my flesh. I was mid-air as one lucky lesser warrior got within my guard, carving a long gash along my abdomen. My HUD declared that I had taken 30 damage, but luckily I didn’t have a bleed effect. The rush of combat kept the pain at bay, and thankfully my ability to fight was not hampered.

Sensing my blood, the spiders were whipped into a frenzy, continuing their relentless assault on me. I focused as best as I could on dodging the big ones while darting in to strike the lesser warriors, but there were so many blades I couldn’t get an attack in. During the exchange I took another two hits, bringing my health down to 190. The bugs were relentless, attacking without fatigue, and things were not looking good for me.

I didn’t want to risk another magic attack, but at this point I felt I had no choice. I started charging up one more pressurized wind blade, and as I did, I abandoned all pretense of attacking, focusing solely on defense. Sensing my change in attack pattern, the spiders were even more incensed, attacking with greater ferocity and speed to make up for the extra space, or perhaps to try and prevent the magic attack.

After a 15 second charge, the spell was ready. I just needed to get in position. This time, when the spiders lunged in with their blades, I lunged as well. They rose to my challenge, slashing horizontally with their claws. I ducked under the blow of one of the large spiders and released the wind blade directly into its belly.

The blade ripped through the small space between us in a fraction of a second, though it failed to pierce the dense shell of the warrior, knocking it back instead. The big spider was thrown upwards and back, crashing down on its side when it landed. Its large counterpart didn’t fare much better, having several of its eyes sliced out before getting tossed backward as well. They were both stunned, but still in the fight.

The lesser warriors were a different story. Two of them were now missing their front blade limbs. The third took the wind blade directly to the head, and though it only managed to penetrate five inches, it was enough to hit the brain and end the creature’s miserable existence.

Now that I had some space, I could press the attack, hopefully cleaning up the rest of the spiders before they regained their bearings. Now that they were missing their blade limbs, the two living lesser warriors could only use their fangs to attack like the drones, but I wouldn’t let them. I dashed over to their stunned forms as fast as I could and pierced their heads just like their first brother. While I was moving to finish off their lesser kin, the warriors had managed to stand up once again. They glared at me in rage, hissing with their monstrous mouths, pink tongue flapping.

If I wanted to kill these guys, I needed to get past their blades and strike at their heads from above. If I was above ground, I would just fly above them, but in these tight caves even if I was lying on the ceiling, they could still slash me with their sword limbs. I would have to be nimble and fast if I wanted to do this. First up was eyeless. He could still see me, but five of his eight eyes had been popped by the wind blade, and the sockets were currently leaking dark green goo. Rushing at him with interspersed 1-foot blinks to add irregularly to my movement, I jumped as high as I could, aiming for his back. As his counterpart charged at me from behind, he rose his two great forelimbs to catch me out of the air, smashing them down at me faster than I thought possible.

I brought both wings up to block the blow, catching the blades before they could crush me. As they blade impacted, I felt the bones of my right wing snap from the force, and I was thrown by my momentum down onto its back, hard. That one attack brought my health down to 108, and my right wing was pulsing in agony.

Not willing to lay down and die, I scrabbled on its head, searching for a grip. My left hand found purchase inside of one of its eye sockets, and I used my purchase to stabilize myself. I tried to use my claws to pierce the shell on its head, but it was too thick, and I was entirely unable to get through it.

Its counterpart was still charging at me and I looked up in time to see it raising its large scything arms to strike me while I sat on it’s injured friend’s back. Just like before, the warrior’s blade crashed down, this time splitting the eyeless spider’s head vertically. The arachnid beneath me buckled with such force that I was thrown head-first into the wall of the cave.

Cracking the crown of my head against the wall, I fell in a slump. I attempted to sit up again, but the whole world was blurry, and it was difficult to get my bearings. I must have a concussion. I used the wall to haul myself up, but it was difficult. My HUD declared that I had 37 health remaining and that I was confused. Yeah, no shit I was confused. I had brain trauma. I used my remaining mana to cast an aqua heal, bringing my health up to 52 and removing the confused status, but I was fresh out of mana.

The spider had attacked its friend with such force that its blades were stuck in the stone beneath the corpse of its partner. It was as good a chance as I would get to attack, but I needed something to penetrate the spider’s head with. My claws just would not cut it, no pun intended. Looking around me for anything to use, I saw a glimmer of something shiny and reached down to grab it. It was one of the blades of the lesser warriors, razor-sharp and two feet long.

With my right hand, I wielded the blade, and with my left, I carried the largest rock I could easily find. I moved right up to the trapped spider's head and used my foot to try and hold it in place, preventing it from squirming away. Because its forelegs were stuck, the head was at just the perfect height. I planted the stolen spike and used the rock to hammer it in. With a meaty smack, the spider blade was driven into the larger arachnid’s head around an inch. It wasn’t enough.

Again.

My rock crashed into the blade a second time, and the large spider shrieked in fury. I was tired.

Again.

Green blood began to seep from the spider’s joints as it attempted to tear its front limbs off and flee. I was so close.

Again.

The blade had sunk into the bugs head a full foot, and the spider was making a disgusting gurgling sound. Wrapping both hands around the make-shift nail, I tore it free from its gooey container, showering me in spider brain matter, and finally ending the big bastard’s life.

Damn. I turned to the door and watched as the trapped door spider fled into a hole, disappearing from sight.

I heavily sat down right where I was, using my feet to push myself away from the large corpse. I was filthy and more injured than I had ever been in my life. In games, no matter how much health you had you could fight at full strength. The real world didn’t work that way. I had a broken wing, and was covered in gashes all over my body. I could feel an unpleasant pressure and pain inside my body, and it seemed likely that I had some cracked ribs as well from when I slammed into the wall.

I sat and watched as one by one the corpses of the spiders disintegrated into blue particles, leaving behind various bits and bobs to take. Each of the lesser warriors dropped five silver, and the drones left a smattering of thread and coins as well. The large spiders left behind a small pile of gold coins, and well as a few cuttings of their chitin, I assume as a crafting material. But that was not all.

One of the large spiders left behind a familiar-looking red potion. The other one left behind something much more interesting. I put everything that seemed valuable into a pile and used identify on it.

Silver Coin – A standard silver coin. Worth 10 coppers.

Gold Coin – A standard gold coin. Worth 10 silvers.

Skullback Drone Silk – a material used to make armor and clothing. It is incredibly smooth and sturdy and is used to make valuable clothes. Mana conductivity: minor

Skullback Warrior Chitin – a material used to create armor. Armor made from it has a chance to get poison attribute abilities. Mana conductivity: lesser

Moderate Spider Healing Potion – A potion that when used heals 300 health. Tastes like spiders. Enjoy!

Hasty Spider Warrior’s Longsword – ERROR damage. Deals ERROR additional damage to spider monsters. Small chance to apply paralysis on hit. Requires 25 strength. The front blade from a Skullback Warrior with a handle hastily made on one end.

Sharpness: 2

Hardness: 3

Mana conductivity: lesser

As soon as I saw the readout on the healing potion, I pulled the cork out and downed the thing. It was a deeply unpleasant sensation feeling your bones popping back into place, but the relief from the agony I was feeling before was well worth it. Perhaps more unpleasant was the fact that the potion tasted like a combination of ozone and burning garbage, which had then been distilled, and left in the sun for a few days. Spiders did not taste good.

The longsword’s readout looked very different from other weapon readouts I had seen up to this point. The mana conductivity was still where it should be, but there were two new stats, sharpness and hardness, as well as errors where the damage readouts should have been. Was that an actual error, or did it have to do with the lack of damage numbers in the dungeons? I was just starting to get used to this whole system, and now even more stuff was breaking or changing. What the hell was going on? When would the waves stop?

At least I didn’t hurt all over anymore. I packed away all of the money and supplies into my backpack. Now that I wasn’t dying, though my taste buds still were, I could look around the room. There were two entrances, and I assume that the two paths from the fork in the road early on terminate here. The door ahead of me was the same white marble as the door at the entrance, and I assumed that after I touched it I would be teleported to the next floor.

I decided to wait around here until I was at about half mana, and then move on. As I waited, I did my best to clean myself off, and had a snack of some beef jerky to tide me over. I used a bit of mana to create some water to slake my thirst as well. When I was ready, I approached the door and laid my hand on it.

When I did, the door silently swung open, and I was greeted with the sight of a stairwell twisting down, gently lit with more glowing mushrooms in sconces on the walls. Once the door stopped moving, I felt an alert ping into my mind, and I opened it up.

Alert! Floor 1/ERROR Cleared! Experience Calculated and Granted!

Enemies eliminated:

Skullback Drone (Rank 2) x 66: 660 xp

Lesser Skullback Warrior (Rank 2) x 4: 400 xp

Skullback Warrior (Rank 2) x 2: 500 xp

Experience bonuses:

First! (+10%)

Lone Wanderer (+25%)

First Dungeon Dive (+20%)

Total Experience: 2418 xp

Level Up: lvl 7 -> 12 (323/607)

First Rank 2 Milestone Reached:

Race: Storm Paraelemental Warrior: +2 str, +2 agi, +2 dex, +1 int, +1 wis, +2 cha

Class: Way of the Storm Martial Artist: +1 str, +1 agi

Heart of the Warrior: +2 str, +2 agi, +1 int

Physicality: +1 str, +1 agi, +1 con

Elemental Affinity: +2 int, +2 wis

Electronics: +1 int

Crafting: +2 dex, +1 int

Graceful Presence: +1 int, +2 cha

Role-Playing Bonus: ERROR

Total Max Stat increases:

STR: +6

AGI: +6

DEX: +4

CON: +1

INT: +7

WIS: +3

CHA: +4

And yet another set of errors, this time in the role-playing bonus, and in what appears to be the floor counter in the title. It seems like there are some serious problems with the system right now, and that did not instill me with confidence considering my current location. Something with the experience felt off as well. The Orc each granted different experience per level, and I could have sworn that the level 3 and 4 orc granted more than the 10 xp that each of these drones granted. Was that just the dungeon, or was there something more that I was missing?

I pulled up my next alert.

Skill Alert! Level Up! Current Status Increased!

General Skills:

Acrobatics – lvl 1 -> 4

Quiet Movement – lvl 6 -> 14 - Reduces noise generated by movement by (14%)

Enhanced Vision – lvl 17 -> 20 (MAX) - perfect vision from 50 feet away. Skill Derivations Available.

Race Skills:

Storm Fists – lvl 14 -> 21 – (+21) Lightning Damage. 3 mana per strike.

Electroreceptivity – lvl 9 -> 11

Combat Skills: +55xp

Heavy Armor Mastery – lvl 1 -> 5 – (5%) reduction in equipped heavy armor’s weight felt by the wearer

Claw Techniques – lvl 1 -> 6 – increase change to inflict a bleed status by (18%)

Magic Skills:

Storm Command – lvl 1 -> 4

Enhancement Skills:

Enhanced Physicality – lvl 3 -> 5. Health +50, Stamina +50

Rapid Regeneration – lvl 3 -> 4

Resistance Skills:

Pain Tolerance – lvl 4 -> 7 – (35%) resistance to pain

Archetype Skills:

Lone Wanderer – lvl 42 -> 45

Current Status Increases:

+ 3 Str

+ 8 Agi

+ 5 Dex

+ 4 Int

+ 3 Wis

+ 3 Cha

It seems like being in a dungeon is an incredible way to level skills. I don’t think I’ve ever had this many increases at the same time. The current status increases were also useful, though it seems like I needed to focus on moving my body to get my abilities up to their current maximums. If I did it with strength, I would have a base 380 health instead of the base 250 that I had currently, which would mean I was just that much more difficult to kill. I needed to specialize, and all of my stats were annoyingly even presently.

I would need to think long and hard about my combat style on the next floor. Now that I knew I could safely take out the warriors and drones by hand, it would be a good chance to get level increases in the skills I wanted to specialize in. It seemed like enhanced physicality and rapid regeneration increased in level due to the amount of damage I received. Unfortunately, it seemed likely that they would increase further considering the difficulty of this boss fight.

Up next was to choose my derivation for my passive eyesight ability. Any ability that increased the effectiveness of your senses was always nice to have.

Alert! Multiple Skill Derivations for General Skill: Enhanced Vision!

- Darkvision: You can now see in dim light as if it were daylight

- Long Vision: By focusing on a single target, you can gain increased visual clarity of them

- Uncanny Sight: You can see small irregularities in your surroundings to help you pick out traps, clues, and dangers.

Well shit. This might be the hardest choice I’ve made in a long while. All of the choices seemed catered to my playstyle. Each one of them would be extremely beneficial to both my current situation and to situations going further. Darkvision would give me the edge in dark spaces. Like in caves, for example. Long Vision would give me the ability to zoom in on targets while flying, so that was handy as well. Lastly, Uncanny Sight seemed like it would help not only in dungeons, but while flying, and in general day-to-day happenings.

Considering what I needed it for, Uncanny Sight gave me the most bang for my buck. The long vision was helpful beyond all regards, but I could supplement my lack of it with a set of binoculars. Darkvision was also helpful, but I expected that on one of my racial upgrades I would get it naturally, and it felt silly doubling up. With that out of the way, I made my choice.

Alert! New Skill Unlocked!

Skill: Enhanced Vision has merged with New skill: Uncanny Sight

General Skill:

Uncanny Sight – lvl 1/50 – You have perfect vision within 50 feet. You can spot small differences in your surroundings to give you additional information. This skill can be used both in the field, and on other people to detect subtle facial tics making it invaluable to many. Improves with skill use and practice.

After observing the changes, and making sure I had no more alerts, I began to walk down the stairs, deeper in the spider den. It took three hours to clear the first floor, and I had no time to lose if I wanted to make it out of here alive.