The spiral staircase was a pleasant sight to see. I desperately wanted to get to the fifth-floor checkpoint so that I could take a jaunt outside. The constant darkness over the past three days was starting to drive me up a wall, and I craved fresh air like a parched man craved water. Perhaps it was a consequence of being part air elemental, but it was more likely that it was a manifestation of my freedom seeker instinct at play. Perhaps a bit of both.

Once more, I lost my direction through the constant winding of the spiral staircase. That being said, this one was much shorter than that from the second to the third floor. I quickly found myself within yet another corridor, though this one seemed much more orderly than the previous ones.

The ground was made of cobbled stones and was relatively flat, while the walls were carved from the cavern rock. Braziers were burning with low flames interspersed evenly through the hall, and at the end, a yawning doorway waited. I walked down the hall, being very watchful for any surprise attacks that I might run into. It was like this floor was a combination of the natural caves of the first, second, and third with some kind of stone fortress. That would make sense to me considering that the name of the dungeon was Temple of the Orb Weaver Queen, and so far, nothing had looked much like a temple.

Based on the décor and the general vibe of the fourth floor, I guessed that this would be a series of encounters leading up to a boss fight. I had played enough games to give a good guess where the boss rooms would be, and this place practically screamed, “how dare you enter my dungeon!”, or,” so you have finally come to me”, or some other typical boss encounter line. Once again tightening the straps on my backpack, I wrapped my hand around the handle of the spider longsword. It had become a trusty companion, and it was starting to get beat up, dented, and chipped from the constant fighting with little repair and maintenance. I didn’t exactly have a whetstone with me, and I wouldn’t know what to do with one even if I did. Sharpening knives seemed a bit different from sharpening swords, and I wanted to make sure that I was doing it correctly. That being said, any maintenance was better than no maintenance. I would need to look for something that would let me hone the edge, but that was a problem for a later time.

Looking around me, I saw I had arrived at the door. The doorway was a slate grey stone and was carved with a large orb-weaver spider on the mantle. It looked almost life-like, so not wanting to take any chances, I took a copper coin and threw it at the carving, waiting for it to bounce off and clatter to the ground before making any moves. Nothing happened, so I figured I was okay to enter.

This was certainly a planned encounter room. From my position at the doorway I could see a large circular arena bordered with columns made of the same slate grey stone. They stood against the walls of the room, evenly spaced, though from where I was I could neither see their tops nor see how many columns there were. The floor of the room was sand and would make footing difficult when I needed to fight. The ceiling of the room extended out of sight, so it was safe to say that small fights would be possible if needed. I just freaking knew the doorway would slam shut when I entered the room, so I had to be ready when it happened.

I went ahead and identified the door, seeing if I would learn anything about the environment before fighting.

Entrance of Trial of the Swarm: seals upon entry

Today, I learned that identify could detect dungeon facts and information as well. In other news, that did not seem like a fun name for a place to have. According to the skill, my suspicions were correct, and I would be stuck in the room until the trail was complete. I was a bit nervous, but there was nowhere to go but onwards.

I entered the room and heard the stone doors behind me grind closed. Now that I was inside, I could look up at the ceiling. Above me was a massive brazier suspended in the darkness, burning with enough light to fill the whole room. Above it was only black, the ceiling occluded from sight, probably by magic. Across the way was yet another stone door that I presumed would be my exit. I stood, waiting for my first opponent to show up.

Hearing yet another grinding on my right and left, two doors began to open. From them poured a collection of drones. There was a great deal of them, between twenty and thirty, but I could take them on without injury if I had the initiative in combat. Striving to save as much mana as possible, I opted for melee attacks only, for now. There would be multiple waves of enemies and getting burnt out after only the first one was a mistake.

I fell upon the drones in a flurry of blade and claw, kicking, slicing, and gouging parts of spider with every attack. These guys were so far beneath me in skill now, and their only advantage was swarm tactics. They were so slow that each attack had no hope of connecting. I had learned to use my armored arms and legs to protect me from most attacks, and they would have to get within my guard to strike at my torso. That just wasn’t going to happen.

I backtracked as I slaughtered them and left the swarm in pieces after only a couple of minutes. Once I was done killing the wave, I checked my stamina and health. I had taken no damage, but the ferocity of my attack used up thirty stamina. That was more than okay considering the ridiculous amount of agility that I boasted right now.

The next doors began to grind open. This time, it was something new. From the two opening doors crept two of the largest spiders I had ever seen.

Skullback Broodmother (Rank 2) – lvl 15

Skullback Broodmother (Rank 2) – lvl 15

They looked frail and squishy, but their nasty head and eyes were extremely unpleasant to behold. Their thoraxes pulsed disgustingly. The spiders were an off-white color, like insects that had just come out of their eggs and had no pigmentation yet. I had never needed to use the words wet and slimy to describe a spider, but I did now. I just knew that as soon as I killed the broodmothers, smaller spiders would swarm out of them en masse, and that was a horrifying thought. It was one thing to see it in a game, but another to see it in real life. I was not looking forward to this fight, mostly because of how unpleasant they were.

The broodmothers each raised their thoraxes, and with a horrible wet sound, something gooey flew through the air towards me. I dodged backwards, and the goo balls landed right where I was standing before. After a second, the balls grew legs, and released a hissing squeal, turning into small spiders. Both newborn spiders charged at me, but I was having none of it. I quickly used the sword to end the existence of the tiny things and flew straight at the brood mothers. I wanted them dead, quickly. They were too gross for words.

Suddenly, I heard a concussive blast echo out behind me. Slowing down and turning, I looked back and saw two craters where the little spider corpses were.

Surprised, I shouted, “THEY EXPLODE?!?”, just as the broodmothers splooged out another set of babies. I identified them before continuing my dash for the mothers.

Spiny Broodling (Rank 2) – lvl 1

Spiny Broodling (Rank 2) – lvl 1

The little fuckers were shrapnel bombs. That did not fill me with joy and confidence. I quickly killed the two new broodlings and dashed towards the leftmost broodmother.

Lucky for me, they were weak as hell. These were ramp-up enemies. The longer you didn’t attack, and the further away you were, the worse they were to deal with. Because I was such an in-your-face type combatant, they couldn’t do much against me other than die dramatically.

And die they did. The broodmother couldn’t survive even four slashes with the sword, falling dead on the ground, leaking some nasty off-white goo onto the ground. I moved towards the other one and finished it off as well.

The corpses, though, had yet to disappear. You didn’t need a rocket scientist to figure out what was next, so I took my distance and waited on the far edge of the arena for the big floppy bastards to detonate. As I watched, they swelled like balloons, the chemicals in their body acting like natural explosives. With a loud bang, they opened up, spraying their internals all over the place. Lucky for me, they didn’t send out loads of little spiders when they popped. What they did do was send out shards of carapace and bone in every direction. Because I was so far away, the bone shrapnel missed me, but if I was close, I would have been shredded to pieces.

It looked like there were two more doorways, so one more wave. They started to grind open once again, and this time, I decided to go for a magic attack. I immediately started charging a pressurized wind blade. Out of the left door, came two more broodmothers, and out of the right came innumerable amounts of drones. There were too many to count, but there were at least twice as many as the first wave. From the ceiling descended even more drones, hanging off of threads of silk to join the fray. I immediately got started killing. There was no way I would let this encounter ramp up even more.

There were only eight more seconds to charge the spell, but that was pushing it considering the sheer quantity of spiders coming from all directions. To give myself some space, I cloaked my whole body in a sheathe of lightning. I watched in real-time as my mana ticked down. There were so many spiders attacking me all at once that I could barely hold on!

There! The spell was ready, but I didn’t want to release it unless I was in a position to get the maximum effect. I jumped through the air, landing right on top of a drone, killing it beneath my feet. On my left and right were the two broodmothers, and the swarm of drones was coming quickly. Spaced through the swarm were around twenty of those little broodlings, and the mothers were continually producing them, so I needed to destroy them quickly.

The air blade blasted out in an area around me, ripping through the drones as if they were wet paper. While not all of them were destroyed, I now had a ring of fifteen or so feet around me. The air blade managed to critically damage the broodmothers as well, so before they could bother me anymore, I wiped them out. As I did so, all around me, explosions ripped out as broodlings detonated, killing the few remaining drones, and making the place an even bigger mess. I left the pile of bodies, returning to the very edge of the arena, waiting until the explosions stopped.

Eventually, the broodmothers both exploded, ending the lives of the few remaining drones. As all of the spiders began to disintegrate into blue particles, I walked across the whole floor, picking up any drops that I could see. There were many more spools of thread, as well as some interesting items from the broodmothers.

Broodmother Detonating Powder – a natural explosive produced by skullback broodmothers. Useful for crafting bombs and ammunition.

There were two small glass jars of the powder, and I added them to the monster bag. When I finally got back to town, I would have lots and lots of arachnid themed goodies for all of my friends, and I was interested to see what they could make from them.

When the ding rang through the arena, a single door heading onwards opened, and allowed me deeper into the floor. The hallway was almost identical to the one at the entrance, but it looked like it was made much better. The floor was smoother, and the walls were carved more accurately. The braziers were ringed with ornamental web-like engravings. Eventually, I reached the next arena.

It was very similar to the last arena, though like the hallway, it was much more intricate. I identified the doorway.

Entrance of Trial of the Warrior: seals upon entry

It was easy enough to guess that I would be facing warriors or variants of them in this trial. I had used around 150 mana, but I had also managed to get through the whole fight unscathed, so I decided to take a break for a half-hour to regenerate before going into the next room. It was nice that I could save my health potions for when I needed them, though the most ideal situation was that I wouldn’t need them at all. As I waited, I ate some mushroom, and relaxed, but soon I was back up to max mana and was ready to move on. I could practically taste the fifth floor, and I was anxious to reach it.

I entered the Trial of the Warrior and moved into the center of the arena as the doors started closing behind me. If this was anything like the previous trial, I would be facing both lesser and normal skullback warriors, and I needed to get my head in the game if I wanted to excel in this encounter. My heart beat quickly in my chest as I remembered the pain after the first floor’s boss fight, but I grit my teeth and stood my ground as the entrance thudded shut, and the doors holding back the spiders started opening.

Just like before, two doors opened, one on either side of the exit. I moved as soon as I saw the first bladed leg, not wanting the lesser warriors to have any leeway. There were going to be a lot of them, and I wanted to make sure I wiped them out quickly.

From each door came 5 warriors, and I began to take them apart one by one. They tried to run, retreat, and regroup, but I pursued the deadly arachnids relentlessly and gave them no chance to regain their bearings. After a few minutes of intense fighting, I finished off the last warrior and waited for the final fight. Without the experience gained on the third floor, there is no way that it would have gone so smoothly.

I returned to the middle of the arena while the lesser warriors began to disintegrate and prepared to take on the larger variants. As the next set of doors began to open, I stood closer to the one on the right. Limiting their ability to attack together and taking out the spiders quickly was my safest option, and I wanted to make sure to conserve as much health, mana, and stamina as possible for the final round of the trail.

When the first large warrior entered the room, it quickly turned to me. These spiders were fast, and they were relentless in their attack. It was obvious that all of the traits that made the lesser warriors dangerous were magnified in their larger counterparts, and the armor they possessed made it even more difficult to deal with them quickly. That being said, I had a few ideas that would let me kill them efficiently without too much worry.

Turning briefly, I saw the other warrior spider begin to move towards me, so I needed to act quickly. I lightning stepped to the right of the warrior and sliced down on the joint of his left blade forelimb. My sword bit straight through the joint, leaving the spider down one blade, giving it a distinct disadvantage. As it turned to try and attack me, I moved in its weak spot, attacking the thorax and head where I could. The spider was heavily injured by the time its counterpart arrived, and I was able to get a lucky strike in, ending it’s life before the second could even engage with me.

The fight against the second warrior went just as well. I targeted the legs on one side of it yet again, and once it left an opening, I quickly severed one limb at the joint. With reduced mobility, I could safely dart in and kill the weakened warrior by attacking their heads either from the top, or from the side.

With the two warriors taken care of, I moved back into the center of the arena, awaiting the final wave. For this one, I cast my lightning shield, sending the deadly orbs out to spin around me. Those would keep the lesser warriors at bay if any managed to get behind me to attack.

This time, one of the doors was full of the lesser warriors, about 15 of them, and the other contained two of the larger variants. This was going to be a difficult fight.

I moved towards the lesser warriors first. There were too many of them to engage all at once, so I needed to once again attack while retreating. With the extra reach the sword provided I could attack the lesser warriors long before they could attack me, and I took advantage of that fact. The larger warriors were slowly making their way towards me, but they seemed to be allowing their smaller brethren the chance to attack first. I could use that to my advantage, but already, this fight was going to be lasting a long time.

I entered into a daze of combat. Dodge, dodge, parry, slash, kill, flash backwards. I would wait for the right moment, and then strike when the spiders overextended themselves. Where a normal person would retreat and regroup, the lesser warriors would only attack relentlessly. I took advantage of this. While extremely quick and deadly, they did not possess the ability to wield their blades with the versatility that I could, and that gave me the ability to outmaneuver them.

After the first minute of combat, the large black warrior spiders began to creep closer. As I watched them, I narrowly dodged the slash of a lesser warrior, only to get hit by the lunging attack of another. The injury weighed on my mind, but I did all I could to work past it, continuing my momentum. The lightning balls kept the warriors from getting too close, but they still managed to attack through the spheres. Eventually, in rage, one of the lesser warriors jumped at me. I retreated, but he ate up two of the lightning balls before he died. I didn’t want to replenish the spell just yet, opting to save my mana for empowering my attacks.

Eventually, there were only two lesser warriors left, and the large warriors moved into attack. Seeing that I was out of time, I blasted the lesser warriors with a lightning channel, lunging in to attack with a combination of wind blades and water blades. My blitz was expensive, but effective, absolutely eviscerating the lesser warriors, and leaving only the two black spiders remaining.

I quickly checked, and I had taken around 90 points of damage, used half of my stamina, and I had only 130 mana remaining. To end this quickly, I started to charge up my water cutter in my left hand. I continually retreated as the warriors advanced, their large, lunging attacks keeping me at bay.

The water cutter was a dangerous attack and needed both precision and extremely close proximity to use correctly. It was powerful though and would hopefully allow me to destroy one of the warrior spiders quickly, giving me space to move on and take out the next one. I retreated for the 10 or so seconds it took me to charge the attack, packing as much pressure onto the water as I could. When I reached as much pressure as I could muster, I immediately lightning stepped right above the closest warrior and blasted the cutter directly into its head. The water beam scythed directly through its skull in the two seconds the attack was active, leaving an inch-wide hole directly to its brain, ending its life.

That left only a single spider. Now that there was only one, I could take as long as I needed, so I took my time. I severed legs when I could, and once it’s mobility was compromised, I got into its blind spot, and killed it from above. As I stood over the piles of dead spider warriors, I felt satisfied. Two floors ago, they were the hunters while I was the prey. Now, though, they would have to be scared of me.