“Might be best if you hang back, padre,” I whispered while pressed up against the unnaturally smooth stone wall. I stole a peek around the corner. The gloom was hard to penetrate even with my enhanced vision, but I could see an enormous shape in the center of the cavern beyond. We’d found the queen bee alright. “I’m thinking things might get pretty ugly on the other side.”

Arturo shrugged, unconcerned. “I’m sure I’ve seen worse. Besides, this is all part and parcel of being an Arbitrator. This is my calling and my duty to Raguel. And though we Arbitrators may not have your powers or skill set, when things get bad and there’s no Vigil about, we do what we must.”

“Hey, if you want to hook and jab against that nightmare in there, I’m not gonna argue,” I replied, double-checking my Colt.

I had a full thirteen rounds, all filled up with newly harvested Stoneform Affinity. Pretty badass shit. Every round had an eight percent chance to inflict internal petrification, causing the target’s joints to temporarily calcify, until they were essentially paralyzed. Not sure if it would work against something like the Stone Spider—I figured she probably had a natural immunity since her disgusting children produced Stoneform Affinity—but there was no time like the present to find out.

“But if things do go sideways,” I said after a beat, “don’t hesitate to turn tail and haul ass. No shame in that. Cal is damn near indestructible as far as I can reckon, and my bones heal up pretty damned quick. You, not so much.”

“Your concern is touching,” Arturo replied, absently fiddling with the straps on his armor, readjusting everything one last time.

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “As if, padre. I just don’t want to get stuck lugging your giant ass out of the place, slung over my shoulder.”

“Truly, truly touching,” he said again.

I took a deep breath to steel myself, then pushed off the wall and stormed into the room, pistol in my right hand, a fiery blaze forming in my left.

My eyes adjusted to the dim lighting quickly—not even the bioluminescent fungi grew here. It was probably scared off by the stench hanging in the air, which hit me in the nose like a closed fist. The chamber itself was filled with webbing; bodies dangled from overhead like Christmas decorations.

Right smack-dab in the middle of the room was big mama.

She was easily ten times the size of anything I’d gone up against so far, with a chitinous gray hide thicker than a rhino’s. Instead of scuttling around on spindly spider legs like the rest of her brood, she rested on a huge worm-like tail covered with whipping tentacles. Claws, big enough to crush a car, clicked and clacked as an army of glowing red eyes snapped open and locked onto my position. She opened a maw big enough to swallow me whole and let out an ear-shattering roar that shook the cavern around us, dusty debris raining down from above.

“Cal, keep her busy!” I thundered. “Art, go left, I’ll go right!”

I dashed into the room, unloading the rounds into the creature’s blubbery body. That accomplished a whole lot of nothing. Magical energy bullets pinged off the creature’s rocky exterior, failing to penetrate her hide. I reloaded—feeding more Stoneform Affinity into my Colt—and aimed at the eyes scattered across her upper torso and head. That was slightly more effective, but only when I managed to land a solid hit. Firing at range, while on the move, at targets no bigger than a silver dollar was no easy trick, and most of my shots thudded harmlessly into flabby tissue or chitinous exoskeleton.

My Maximum Penetration skill would’ve been perfect for a situation like this one, but I was a jackass and had opted for some extra flashy magic instead. Idiot.

Meanwhile, Cal had shifted into a Juvenile Stone Spider and was harassing the Matriarch, using his oversized pincers to slash and rip at her wormy belly. His claws were wildly effective, and even better, the queen didn’t quite seem to know what the hell to do with Cal. He looked like one of her offspring, after all, so she seemed hesitant to crush him on the spot. That reluctance bought Arturo and me some time to get into a better strategic position. The priest dove, rolling to avoid one of her pincers—it was a surprisingly nimble maneuver for a man his size and girth.

The padre came up swinging, his heavy war staff batting away an encroaching tentacle, then he laid into the creature’s side. The staff landed like a Mack truck, a small crack forming across the queen’s rocky exterior. Blunt weapons seemed to be effective, and I had one of those on demand.

I darted right, dismissing my pistol with a flick of my wrist, and summoned my mace in the same instant. A tentacle, thick as my wrist, whipped toward my face. I brought my left hand to bear and dipped into the well of energy nestled inside my chest. Power surged down my arm, draining half my Arcana bar, and exploded out from my palm. A glimmering dome of golden light, covered in a flurry of crimson runes, exploded into existence.

The tentacle slammed into the conjured defensive barrier, sparks of golden light spitting into the air on contact. I grunted, the force of the blow pushing me back along the dusty ground, but the shield held fast, my Arcana pool slowly draining.

The tentacle retreated and I dismissed the dome, panting from the exertion.

There was a howl off to my left.

I glanced back in time to see a tentacle wrap around Cal’s Stone Spider form, squeezing the ever-living shit out of my buddy. A sizzling bolt of pearlescent power, no larger than my pinky, erupted from the far side of the cavern. Renholm, slinging Fae magic while he cackled manically from the back of his tabby. I’d totally expected the pixie to bail the second he got his grubby hands on the first half of the Affinity Scale, but it turned out he was a team player when it suited him.

The neurotic little pixie still had some surprises in him, it seemed.

My Combat Sense pinged and I jumped back, narrowly avoiding a flailing tentacle that was hell-bent on turning me into a smear of meat paste, then rolled right, dodging another tentacle aimed at taking out my legs. I rolled to my feet near the mummified body of a former adventurer clad in the tattered remains of leather armor. There was a bastard sword lying near his corpse that still looked functional enough. I snagged it with my left hand. Time for some dual wielding.

I brought my mace screaming around and slammed it into an eye-cluster on the creature’s backside. The blow landed with a meaty thwack and gore erupted in a geyser, while cracks zigzagged out from the impact site. The creature howled, the sound a mixture of rage and pain, and renewed its attacks on me. A small forest of tendrils darted toward me, all ready to tear me limb from limb. I pivoted at the hips and swung the mace, knocking aside another purple-gray limb, then shot in with the pilfered bastard sword, slicing through the meat with a powerful overhand chop.

The severed appendage flopped to the ground and I kicked it away. But another questing tendril wrapped around my ankle, constricting like a boa as it hoisted me into the air.

The sword slipped from my hand, gone as quickly as it had come, and I found myself dangling upside down while barbed hooks punctured the leather of my boot and dug mercilessly into my flesh. A blinding lance of pain shot through my body like a lightning strike.

[Poisoned! You have been afflicted by Stone Spider Venom. Stone Spider Venom causes internal petrification—a debilitatingly painful disease that calcifies the joints. Moving becomes excruciating and if enough instances of Stone Spider Venom are applied, you will eventually be paralyzed. Duration, 1 hour or until healed of Affliction.]

Yay. I was getting to experience internal petrification firsthand, and boy did it suck a bagful of dicks. I couldn’t do anything about the Stone Spider Venom coursing through my veins, but maybe I could prevent any more instances from getting added. Awkwardly, I pulled out a Stoneform Affinity Scale and consumed it, absorbing its power in a sweet rush. The pain rampaging through my body begrudgingly relented as a thin layer of stone spread across my skin, preventing the venomous barbs from penetrating my flesh.

That was one problem down, but now I had a new issue to add to the mix.

Stoneform gave me added resistance, but I had all the flexibility of a Ken doll. Bunch of bullshit. Using all the added energy from the scale, I curled upward and bashed fruitlessly at the tentacle encircling my ankle. Instead of freeing myself, I only seemed to piss off big mama. With a twirl, she smashed me against the wall like a wet rag. The blow rang my bell and the world reeled around me, stars waltzing across my field of vision.

The fact that I was made out of stone was the only thing that kept me conscious.

Also, thanks to the internal petrification kicking the shit out of my joints, my hand stayed closed, so I didn’t drop my mace. Another win. Sort of. Not that I was any less fucked.

“Hold on, Vigil!” Arturo bellowed. The sound reverberated through the air as the priest charged like a maniac, his hair frazzled, his beard already splattered with Stone Spider gore. The guy looked like a demon. He slammed into the queen’s body with his pauldron and he actually managed to shift her enormous ass, even if it was only by a few inches. Arturo danced back, dropped his war staff, and interlaced his fingers, forming his hands into a cup. Cal bounded in and leapt onto the priest; Arturo heaved, eyes bulging, muscles straining as he straightened his legs and hurled Cal through the air.

The specter turned Stone Spider landed on top of the queen, and she lost her mind.

Sure, I was still dangling in the air from my ankle, dazed from being slammed into the wall, but I was alive and big mama had pretty much forgotten about me. Understandable, since she had one of her spidery-legged children tap-dancing on her head, jabbing at her vulnerable eyes with oversized pincers. I would’ve focused on that issue too, had I been in her shoes. Plus, Renholm was busy unleashing what basically amounted to a fairy rave—lights and magic strobing and exploding in the air.

“Taste my wrath, vile she beast!” he screeched. The pixie really was good to have around in a pinch.

Internal petrification was at work inside me, and the stone on my skin made moving even more difficult, but I still had one skill in my arsenal that I hadn’t tried out yet. Peerless Warrior, which came from the Ward of Justice. I had nothing left to lose. I triggered the ability with a thought and felt a renewed surge of power filling my muscles and body as my green Stamina gauge strobed red and began to rapidly diminish. The world snapped into razor-sharp clarity and time seemed to take a deep breath.

Peerless Warrior let me move faster, hit harder, and fight longer, and it made me immune from Hold and Movement Reducing spells. It couldn’t do anything about the actual tentacle wrapped around my ankle, but the bone-grinding effects of internal petrification dimmed and vanished. I was speed. I was power. I was strength. And I was about to own this bitch. I crunched up, rocked forward, and slammed the flanged mace into the side of big mama’s skull. Her hardened exoskeleton cracked like an egg from the impact and viscous blue-green goo leaked out and spilled down its side.

That was the opening I needed.

While the creature was dazed and distracted, I swung my body forward once more, this time jamming my free hand inside the fissure I’d just made. Acid tried to chew through my skin but it was wrapped in a layer of stone. Fueled by the power of Peerless Warrior, I called up every ounce of Arcana energy I could muster from my core and unleashed it in a single Fire Lance…

What happened after that was hard to follow.

My Arcana bar failed at the exact same time my Stamina gauge bottomed out. Honestly, it felt like being rung out like a dish towel. Cold invaded my body while my muscles seized, cramped, and spasmed. That was part of the side effect of Peerless Warrior. It was a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart, but when you crashed, holy shit did you crash hard.

Thankfully, big mama Stone Spider fared even worse.

The slug-bodied queen blew apart at the seams, a terrible screech ripping at the air. Light and heat erupted outward in a wave of gore and chitinous body armor. The force of the blast propelled me forward and hurled me into the wall. Again. This time I hit face-first. They always say the best way to break a fall is with your face. Something crunched, probably my nose, and a wave of hot blood poured down my chin. Fire scorched my hair, the full weight of the fight—the burns and breaks and lacerations—landed like a bunker buster, and the world disappeared in a swirl of black.

I think I passed out, though I had brief flashes of the blubbery body smashing into the ground. Somewhere in there, a veritable fog bank of golden mist swept into my lungs and a heavenly orchestra filled my head.

I’d leveled up, which was probably the only reason I survived the trauma at all.

Afterward, Arturo told me he had to dismember the matriarch, piece by piece, to get me out from underneath the behemoth. I came to just as he lugged the final tentacle off me and chucked it into a heap of rancid Stone Spider guts. Not a pretty sight, believe you me. And worse still, the acidic blood had eaten some nasty holes in my Basic Brigandine armor, turning it into little more than scrap metal. I wasn’t sure even my Armor Evocation ability would be able to fix the mess. Hopefully I would be able to salvage my Arcana Token.

That was the bad news.

The good news was that we were all alive and I’d found an even better replacement set of armor stashed away in the creature’s impressive Spirit Vault. A shirt of gleaming silver scale mail padded with leather, along with a pair of matching greaves that would help protect my legs.

>>

Silver Partial Plate Mail

Type: Heavy, Plate Mail

Class: Adept

This partial plate mail is constructed from a mixture of tempered steel and magically reinforced silver and is designed to offer superior protection of the chest, back, and legs. It is less restrictive and cumbersome than full plate, but the use of ringed mail along the joints does make those areas more vulnerable against piercing blows from pikes, spears, or broadswords. Partial Plate Mail is favored by nobles who fight afoot, whereas full plate is better suited for a cavalry man, riding astride an armored warhorse.

>>

It was leaps and bounds better than my current armor and after I got done breaking it down shotgun style in the Soul Forge for a blueprint and augmenting it with Stone Spider hide, I was gonna have some armor that would keep me safe even from the deadly creature haunting the streets of Ironmoor. That wasn’t all the queen had to offer either. Fabrication ingredients by the bucketload, superior quality Stoneform Affinity Scales, and two other big-ticket items that had me feeling like I was on top of the world. The first was a shiny new Arcanum Token.

>>

Elemental Spark: Fire

Token Type: Weapon Inset, Infernal

Rarity: Rare

The heart of a young Fire Elemental—a divine spark, born of the earth, crushed by the weight of a mountain, and baptized by churning waves of magma. In time this Spark will grow and mature into a fearsome creature—an avatar of nature itself. Or its potent power may be harnessed, granting the wielder a taste of the World Forge.

Effect 1: Equip to a Soul Forged Weapon Skin to add fire damage to all attacks.

Effect 2: When wielding a weapon equipped with Flame Elemental Spark, Fire Resistance increased by 13%.

>>

I cackled like Renholm while I read over the description. I couldn’t wait to imbue my mace with elemental flame. Next time I squared off against the monster that had kicked my ass up and down ye olde Ironmoor, I was going to return the favor by shoving a mace-shaped brand iron down its throat. The second item was a wild card, and I wasn’t sure quite what to make of it. A single True Form Transformation Token.

>>

Transformation Token

Type: True Form

Class: Disciple

Ability: Consume

Primary Effects:

Consume True Form Transformation Token to temporarily polymorph-self into the monstrous incarnation of your Spirit Totem; duration, 14 minutes.

Restrictions:

Must have the Totem Transformation Ability to activate this Transformation Token.

>

Unlike the other Transformation Tokens I’d picked up, this one wouldn’t allow me to become a monster I’d already killed, but the monster that lived inside of me. Problem was, I had no idea what my Spirit Totem was. I assumed that was the kind of thing that most Vigils probably knew before they ever got into the field, but me? I was operating blind. I could consume the token and turn into a dragon or I could wind up as a dumpy, oversized tortoise. I had no idea what to expect or how effective it would be, and since I only had the one, there was no way to test it and find out.

Like I said, a wild card, but one I was glad as hell to have tucked up my sleeve.