Like most things in Sláine’s life, hitting it with something very sharp seemed like the most logical course of action.

But with what? Given that Red was right there and it’d take just one mistake to send them both careening off the edge, [ Reckless Spin ] seemed a bad idea, and as tempting as [ Battle Frenzy ] was, Red would almost certainly kill her make her life very annoying if they both ended up living to tell the tale.

So, best to stick with the tried and true methods, Sláine thought to herself, lunging past Red and ramming the tip of her halberd into the creature’s torso. Even if this was somehow all a giant misunderstanding, Red’s first response being ‘punch it’ really said a lot about the health of their parent/child relationship.

For a moment, all she could do was stare in confusion as something black came out of the wound, something that didn’t flow like blood or… any liquid really, because it traveled up and over the thing’s torso, and crawled onto Sláine’s weapon, and oh those were spiders, the thing was bleeding more spiders.

It didn’t look at Sláine, even as she yanked her halberd back with a schluck. “Really, this seems like a very dramatic overreaction,” it said, treating them both to a congenial smile. “It’s been so long, dear. You never drop in, you never write… can’t you spare any time for your poor, worried mother?”

Red, to her credit, turned around and absolutely booked it back the way they’d come, a continual stream of oh fuck oh fuck oh hell oh hell echoing in her wake. It gave Sláine room to work.

The little black crawling bodies made her skin itch, but she ignored it, cleaving downward and burying the axeblade into the rounded chitin of its hindquarters. The fresh torrent of spiders covered the metal with growing splotches of shifting black, barely visible in the dim light, but they were too little to do any harm, and it wasn’t like Sláine was worried about something as minor as poison.

“Oh, you’re a pest,” the mother of spiders said, sparing her a brief, distasteful glance before flattening itself against the wall and scampering upwards at an obscene pace. It was headed straight towards Red.

“Wh— hey!” Sláine snarled, wanting to chase after it but knowing there was really only one sane option here. “Red! Blow her up!”

Red skidded to a stop, framed by the blue light of the ice. The spider hung in the central point between them now, and as if to encourage her even further, Sláine ran the opposite direction, steering clear of the blast radius.

Except… wait. Something on her legs felt… sticky?

Sláine crashed to the ground, face sliding against the cement. It wasn’t until she began wriggling to right herself that she understood what the problem was. Her legs were stuck together by bands of spider silk, and even as she struggled, the creatures crawling over her wove intricate designs around her thighs and ankles. She slapped her palm against her leg, trying to crush some of the horrible little arachnids, but even when one was destroyed, five more took its place.

Shit.

A wave of heat washed over her, far enough away not to burn her which she, right now, quite regretted because anything that could scorch her skin would also probably kill all these fucking little bugs. Growling in rage, Sláine reached for her halberd to chop the bindings off, but it… wouldn’t move?

The spiders. They’ve bound it to the floor in web.

Sláine pulled, pivoting back to put all her weight into it, but the webbing around her grew tighter, more elaborate, hundreds of little workers creating a prison from which she could not escape. Sláine snapped her attention over to Red, about to shout at her to get over here and help, but…

The spider-creature looked… fine?

Had Red not hit her with the blast? Where was she, even?

“What a terrible way to treat the woman who raised you, Agriope!”

Sláine couldn’t help but gasp, eyes gone wide as she watched the spider reach one of its many arms into the shadow staining the wall and yanked a flailing Red out by the collar. “Don’t call me that!” Red shrieked, planting a boot in the creature’s face, but it didn’t even flinch back.

Shit!

“Now don’t say that, darling, it’s a lovely name.”

With a casual toss, Red was thrown into the pit.

She did not, however, go gently into that good night. Sláine couldn’t really tell what happened, considering it was shadow magic framed by a seemingly endless void, but she could see the edges of those dark tendrils Red had used when they’d fallen before, now tipped with the vague form of hands that flung out and clung to the hole’s edge. Simultaneously, a fierce spire of ice burst up underneath the spider, skewering her straight up the human midsection and letting forth a rolling tide of tiny bodies.

Yet still, she laughed, an echoing sound like the tolling of a bell in a grand chasm, and let her head loll downward to watch Red scramble up to safety.

“My, my, learned a few tricks from the good Professor, did we? A pity about all that. Such a bright soul, he was, so much potential.”

Sláine had officially gotten sick of this, and was now open to drastic options. Taking advantage of the [ Skill ]’s ability to force her body into an arc, no matter what logistical position she happened to be in, Sláine firmly grasped the handle of her pole arm and called out, “[ Reckless Spin ]!”

[ Axe has reached Level 8! ]

[ Bind Resist has reached Level 2! New skills are now available. ]

[ New skills are now available in the Berserker tree! HEY WHEN U GET A CHANCE USE UR SP IT MIGHT HELP PLZ AND TYVM ]

Wait, level eight? That was a jump. Had that happened when she wasn’t paying attention earlier, or…? And what were those strange collections of letters Aria was using?

No matter. She felt the weapon strain against the binding, and she used the [ Skill ] again and again, willing to burn all of her energy if she had to. It took a few more tries before, with a mighty jolt, she felt her body move as the axe-head whirled around and struck the wall with a screech.

Then, suddenly, Red was beside her, picking her up, and running.

“What the hell — ?”

“Keep trying to get them off you!” Red ordered, “This [ Strength ] potion won’t last for long and you’re heavy, bunny.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“And put that away!”

Red tipped her mask down, indicating the halberd awkwardly clutched in Sláine’s hands, which, yes, granted was extremely likely to catch against something, especially as they tried to dive through the doorway she could vaguely see ahead. She instinctively opened her mouth to ask, where, exactly? Before it clicked that this would be an extremely useful application to all that [ Inventory ] business they’d been talking about before.

[ Store ] -> [ Halberd ]

With a sparkle of light, the weapon disappeared, and Sláine just hoped she’d be able to retrieve it with the same ease.

After doing so, Sláine looked over Red’s shoulder, only to see that the spider woman — seriously, had Red literally been born from that? — was still suspended above the ground, unmoving. “Good job,” she said, now tempted to ask Red, what the hell was that all about? — but she was quickly interrupted.

“She’s not dead.”

The voice echoed from all around them then, an amused, delighted hum reverberating from the walls, the ceiling, the floors. She could even hear it from the spiders still wreathed around her body, spurring Sláine to slap them away with renewed vigor.

“Now that you’ve finally come to visit, you didn’t think I’d be letting you go that easily, did you?”

…Now might be a good time to do what Aria suggested.

>> Level up