I made sure to pay better attention to my surroundings when I left the small room. I was moving in front of the Hounds and examining every centimeter of the walls and floor before moving forward. I’ve spent enough time with my Shapes to know that they’ll smell approaching spiders long before they were close enough to attack. This was the same method I’ve applied since I’ve started this little expedition, and would work as long as I held back the Hounds from running forward freely.

As I was carefully leading the Hounds around a pressure plate I wondered, once again, at what precisely was the purpose of these ruins that required such extensive traps. This couldn’t have been convenient to whatever old-worlders had to live or work here. Not that it really mattered to me, except where it related to what kind of treasures the traps were meant to guard.

A yelp from one of the Hounds made me raise my eyes from the closely-fitted marble squares that formed the floor of the corridor. I’ve heard this sound before, and it always meant the approach of something. I haven’t been able to find a difference between the yelp signifying dangerous monsters to the one indicating random prey, like the rabbits that helped supplement my dinners on the way to the ruins. Not that I was likely to find an innocent rabbit in these trap and giant spider filled ruin. This was most likely another giant spider, or possibly one of the rats that were the spiders’ main prey.

A spray of green, viscous liquid flew from an alcove set in the corridor’s wall, just barely missing one of my Hounds. The spiders populating this ruin were of a spitting variety, and would wait in ambush for prey and then spit their sticky and poisonous venom to immobilize it. The first few times it happened, the spiders would catch one of my Hounds, taking it out of the fight almost immediately. Luckily for me, those first spiders were small enough that a single Hound could kill them. By the time the larger spiders started to show up, my Hounds have learned to recognize their lairs and get out of the initial attack’s way.

Just as they’ve done numerous times before, the Hounds leaped towards the spider’s lair, and it was only the fact that I stayed far enough away from them to see the whole corridor that let me order them out of the way of a second venom spray coming from behind them. With their ambush failed, the two spiders were left with no choice but to leave their hiding places and engage my Hounds directly.

The spiders were light grey in color, and were hard to see in the barely lighted stone corridors. They were a meter and a half long, and rose to a height of about half a meter, with a head about half as big as the rest of their body.

This was not good news for me. My Hounds could deal with one spider fairly easily, with one Hound keeping the arachnid’s attention while the other attacked from its flank or back. A two versus two battle would be a lot harder, especially since a single hit from the spiders’ venom would immobilize a Hound.

I ordered the Hounds to keep both spiders busy, but to avoid attacking and just keep away from the venomous spray. While they were fighting, I dropped my pack and took down the arquebus hanging over my shoulder. I pulled the weapon’s cock back to the full position and raised the weapon to my shoulder. The spiders were fast and would have been nearly impossible to hit, but I knew that they had to stand in place when spitting, so I waited until the one I was aiming at started to spray. When I saw its first drops of venom, I gently squeezed the weapon’s trigger, releasing the flint to hit the frizzen, ignite the blast crystal and launch the heavy lead ball at the spider.

I wasn’t in any way an expert marksman with the complex weapon, and would honestly have preferred to use a crossbow, but the spiders’ carapace was too strong for anything short of an arbalest to penetrate. Fortunately, I was shooting at a very short range, and the ball slammed into the spider and crushed its head, freeing the Hounds to concentrate on the remaining arachnid.

The Hounds quickly entered their now familiar rhythm. The first Hound feinted at the spider, and while the arachnid was trying to defend itself, my second Shape darted in from behind and bit down on its leg. I knew from experience that losing one leg wouldn’t have too much of an impact on the spider, and indeed the beast spun towards its tormentor, and started spraying its venom. The Hound retreated out of the way, and its twin snuck in to attack. The second attack slowed the spider down noticeably, and the Hounds continued their game of feint and attack, and a minute later the beast lay dead.

With the fight over, I ordered the Hounds to stand guard, placed the arquebus’s stock on the ground, and poured a measure of blast crystal into its barrel, followed by a cloth wad and then a large lead ball. I quickly pulled out my ramrod and pushed the ball down to seat it firmly on the blast crystal, pulled the flint to the half-cock position, and filled the flash pan with more crystal from my dwindling pouch.

Blast crystal was produced during the death and rebirth cycle of a Crystal Phoenix, a rank IV fire-aligned Hawk Shape, which made it very expensive for anyone who wasn’t a Forrester. The only reason I could afford any was that I had an arrangement with Darren, the heir-apparent to the Forrester fortune. He got first pick of whatever I scavenged, I got some supplies that were otherwise impossible to get. I still couldn’t afford a lot of it, and only had enough for five more shots. If the spiders were starting to come in groups, I’d have to retreat and try to explore a different part of the ruins.

None of which would have been an issue if I had a couple of more Hounds, of course. But to get more Hounds I’d need to actually find something worth selling, and so far this ruin was very disappointing.

***

Luckily for me, most of the spiders remained solitary, and I only had to use the arquebus once for the rest of the day. It was impossible to check the sun’s position and know the time in the mostly buried ruin, but I’ve become very good at gauging my own tiredness, and I knew that it wasn’t long before I’d need to head out, since I really didn’t want to spend the night in the spider infested halls. I gave myself one more room to check, and resigned myself to another day with nothing to show for my efforts.

When I entered the room, however, it seemed that my luck was finally changing. Broken parts of some arcane old-world machinery covered the walls of the room, and the meagre light of my torch sparkled of it with the familiar white shine of whitesteel. One of many materials the old-worlders used that we had no idea how to make any more, whitesteel was lighter and harder than the finest steel our smiths could produce, but while they didn’t know how to make it, they certainly knew how to work with it. Whitesteel always got good prices back in town, and here before me was the largest amount I’ve ever seen. I opened my backpack and started to pry as much of the white metal as I could cram into it. There was no way for me to take everything, but what I could carry would be more than enough for me to Shape more Hounds, and still have enough to buy supplies and return for the rest.

I was prying open one of the more intact devices in the room, a barrel about the size and shape of an expensive liquor keg, when my light sparkled from something that wasn’t whitesteel. I tried to look closer into the barrel, and nearly dropped my torch in shock at what I saw. Unlike the familiar metal, this wasn’t anything I’ve seen before, but the blue spherical crystal was unmistakable. I reached gingerly into the barrel, and pulled out what had to be a skystone.

Elemental stones were another old-world resources nobody knew how to make any more. They were basically solidified vim given an elemental alignment, and this single skystone was worth more than all of the whitesteel in the room.

I sat down on the floor and gazed at the small fortune I’ve just found, and tried to decide what I wanted to do with it. I could drain it of air-aligned vim. It should hold twenty units, which would let me Unshape one Hound and rank the other one. Moreover, instead of ranking-up into a normal Wolf, the air-aligned vim would change my Shape into that of a Skywolf, giving it a pair of wings and the ability to fly. Of course, that would mean I’m down to one Shape and no vim, and I’d lose the air alignment if I Unshaped it, which would essentially stop me from advancing as a Shaper.

The second option was to sell the stone. I could take it to Darren, and he’ll probably pay me enough to have as much access to his family’s Patterns as I wanted. But I would probably never find another elemental stone in my life, and I’d certainly never be able to afford one. And I really didn’t want to trade away the option to have an air-aligned Shape.

After a while, my thoughts just started to run around in circles, and I ended up deciding not to decide. I’d take the stone with me and keep it a secret. I could carry enough Whitesteel to buy access for four Shapings, which would let me keep one experienced Hound and Unshape the other, so I won’t have to teach the new Hounds how to fight the spiders again. And after these new Hounds were maxed out, I’d use the skystone to rank one of them up into a skywolf, leaving me with enough Hounds that I wouldn’t run out of vim.

My mind finally made up, I stood up and finished filling my backpack with whitesteel, and then retraced my path back to the entrance. I’d sleep outside tonight, and start my way back to town in the morning.