Neil

DING

Through use and practice your WATER AFFINITY has improved!

DING

Through use and practice your TAINT AFFINITY has improved!

DING

Through use and practice your TAINT AFFINITY has improved!

I looked at the last two notifications with dread as I ran through the tunnel with Talass. I had always had a bad feeling when using the Taint affinity, but it always faded when I stopped using it. Now I could feel it lingering in my soul, coating it.

It felt like my soul was coated in oil, and I could feel my stomach churning as I dwelled on it.

‘Put it out of your mind, if you complete this quest you should be fine’ I hoped to myself. Focusing on putting one foot in front of the other I tried to avoid stepping on Talass’s tail as I ran behind her.

When we reached the fork in the path I called out to her, “Hey Talass! Stop!” She continued slithering forwards until I grabbed her tail with both hands and pulled.

Her tail was thick and almost entirely made up of muscle so I could barey get my hand around it, but she nonetheless stopped.

“We should grab more plants.”

“Why? I already gathered the best plants, nothing else is ready to be used.” She said panting.

“If something happens to Kallix and Renther the tribe will be fucked, just grab a few of the next best samples, it would be better than nothing.”

Reluctantly she nodded and we started upwards. The small tunnel showed how its design had been intended for Lamia as Talass had no problem ascending the steep slide, the small bumps allowing her traction. I on the other hand kept slipping and had to scramble upwards on my hands and feet.

When we reached the garden it was thankfully devoid of spiders and Talass was already looking over the plants carefully trying to find anything ripe enough for her people to use.

I stood over the entrance and slowly summoned more water. So long as I took my time and was careful I found I could use only my water affinity, although it was difficult, it was only when I rushed or used a lot of affinity at once that I found I used Taint without intending to. By taking my time when nothing was trying to kill me I could avoid exposing myself to Taint, at least a little.

Slowly adding to the water in front of me until I had a medicine balls worth of water hovering in the air in front of me by the time Talass returned.

“Find anything good?”

“Yes, and I picked it earlier!” She shouted testily, as she cut off a small branch with her knife.

“You have one minute, then we need to go, and put half of what your gathering in my bag. Just in case.”

After a minute of furiously moving from plant to plant Talass returned and shoved a bundle of plants into my bag. By now my water ball was the size of two medicine balls and it was getting unwieldly to control with one hand. I handed my spear to Talass and before she could say anything I changed the shape of the water to a wall roughly the size of the tunnel.

Sliding down the tunnel with the water in front of me I felt several small thumps against the water as I picked up speed. Several legs pushed through the water almost hitting me in the face. With a grunt of exertion I firmed up the wall trapping the waving appendages.

Hitting the ground I started running keeping the wall steady and solid. When I finally reached the fork in the path I pushed the water forwards squishing the spiders against the wall before pivoting the water to the side and pushing it forwards leaving space for us to use the right fork.

Standing in the fork I shoved the water away knocking the spiders off balance. Breathing heavily I started to feel the strain of using so much water, I should have stuck with a smaller amount for now. Hearing a chattering from behind me I held my left hand towards the water wall holding it in position, and I turned looking down the other hallway.

I saw a spider move towards me from the path we needed to take, so I gestured with my right hand towards the other spider pulling some water off the wall. The water shot forwards just as the spider jumped towards me in the cramped tunnel. The water pierced the spider's torso and it slid up the water spear towards me, the hole being widened as the spear increased in width. The spider ran out of momentum just before reaching me and I was faced with 11 wide eyes, and a needle like sucker waving towards my face, while it was emitted a loud screeching sound.

Pushing the water whip to the side I slipped past the spider, pulled back the water wall allowing the injured spider to slip behind the wall, while collecting all of the water in the water whip back into the wall. From the other side of the wall I could hear the spiders pounce on their injured brethren.

I saw movement on my right hand side and I almost struck with another water spear before I realized that it was Talass joining me. She was carrying my spear easily, but still looked frightened.

She looked at me for a moment before continuing down the only path left to us. I turned back to the water wall and opened a small hole in it to see what was happening on the other side of it.

The spiders were eating the spider I had injured. Their needle like suckers puncturing the injured spider’s torso and a disgusting sucking sound coming from the still squealing injured spider.

‘Fuck this.’ I thought as I compressed the water back into a ball and turned and ran after Talass. She was making surprisingly good time and I found myself getting further and further behind as she pulled away.

Fortunately there was only the one path and it was impossible for me to lose her trail.

After several minutes of running I managed to spot Talas ahead thrusting with the spear at something in front of her.

Running up to her being careful to avoid stepping on her tail I split off a small amount of water from the ball into a spear and thrust it past her shoulder into the spider she was fighting. I only clipped it on its lower body, but the strike managed to injure two of the creatures legs, the six legs it had left however still left it mobile enough to attack us.

Pulling back the water to my ball I saw Talass spear it once again plunging the weapon into the spider and shoving it to the side of the tunnel.

“Let me through!” I called out from her right-hand side.

She shifted enough that I was able to scramble past her with my water. Submerging the spider into my water I pushed it up trapping it on the ceiling, as I stood to the side letting Talass pass me by.

The spider struggled in the water its legs scrambling trying to get purchase on anything. It managed to get ahold of the wall and it tried to pull itself out of the water. Increasing the pressure I crushed the spider, the water turning black with its blood. When Talass passed by me I forced the spider out of the water dropping it on the ground, its legs still twitched as it tried to turn towards me. Not wanting to bother killing it I turned and chased Talass who had stopped a short distance away, her hands on her hips breathing heavily.

“Are you ok?”

She nodded at me as she panted for breath, Lamia really had no stamina, and Talass seemed to be worse than most of her people.

“They eat their own so we should have a moment, but we need to get going.”

“I’m alright, I just needed a moment.” She said straightening up.

“Alright I’ll take point, keep an eye out behind us and let me know if they catch up.” I said not waiting for a response.

I had been careful so far to leave behind as little water as possible as I had been fighting, but still my water ball was almost half of the size it had been at its height, which was probably for the best. The strain of controlling so much water was taking its toll on me and I found myself moving at a slow jog, my own breathing coming in more labored than I was comfortable with. I really wish I had a stamina potion or two right about now, of course I also wished that having a potion wouldn’t put me in danger of dropping from mana sickness. Quickly turning my attention inwards to my soul I judged that I was not in any danger of passing out because of waste mana, but if I needed to make this much water again I’d collapse like my parents after having ‘just a drink with dinner.’

Talass and I jogged through the twisting tunnel for what felt like a kilometer and a half when we came to a second fork in the path. Considering the two paths Talass and I looked at each other.

“Any ideas?” I asked.

“This way.” Talass said taking the lead and heading down the right-hand path.

“I love how confident you sound despite the fact that you already admitted that you have no idea what’s down here.” I said to her rapidly retreating back.

“If you know I have no idea then why did you ask?” She responded testily.

“I was hoping that you would have a better idea than just picking a path at random and sounding confident.”

“I told you, I’ve never been down here! and I’ve never even seen most of the city!”

Catching up to Talass I avoided her tail and walked just behind her.

“I know, alright, I’m sorry. We’re both stressed out, worried for Kallix and Renther and the rest of the tribe, but we can’t take it out on each other alright?”

She stopped for a moment and looked at me with thunder on her face and for a second I was worried what I had said just backfired. But a moment later she spoke. “Fine, let's just get through this and get back to the tribe before all of my people are killed or enslaved.”

Deciding that was likely the best I was going to get I got in front of Talass and started walking again.

“I think the path is starting to lead upwards.”

“It has been for a little while, but it is getting steeper.”

After a few more minutes spent walking in silence we reached a dead end.

“Shit!” Talass said loudly far too closely to my ear, in the cramped hallway it hurt a little and caused my ears to start ringing.

“This can’t be a dead end, there’s no point in digging a tunnel this far it to just stop.” I said running one hand over the wall and the edges of the tunnel looking for any catches, door handles, or something to trigger a secret passage while my other hand held up the water.

Behind me I heard and felt Talass turn around, I was about to call her out for giving up so quickly when she spoke first.

“I hear something coming, I think it’s them.”

“The spiders?” I asked still focused on looking for anything that could open the door. This would have been a lot easier with a little bit of light.

“We should go, we don’t even know if there is a door here.”

“Your right, we don’t.” I agreed. “Let me check.”

Placing my water against the door I shaped the water to its edges and I pushed it. If this were a door then no matter how well made it was there should be small cracks that let the water through, if the water did go through then that would hopefully give me an idea of how to open it. If there were no door then we would have a bit of a fight ahead of us.

Pushing harder and harder I was about to give up when I felt it. On the right hand side, a small amount of water was slowly being pushed through a small crack into a small open area.

“What are you doing? You need to get ready, I can’t fight them by myself!” Talass cried out.

“I found something, a crack. I think I can force this open. Give me a second.”

Talass shouted something at me but I was too busy concentrating on what I had found.

Focusing my water on that spot I pushed more and more water into the small open area behind the stone, forcing the crack apart. Slowly the hole started to expand and I went from forcing in a trickle to a small stream. Contracting and expanding the water quickly I saw the hidden door start to shift, just a little, and then all so slowly more and more as the chittering behind me got louder and louder.

With a loud crack something beside the door finally gave in under the pressure, and a small spot in the wall near the door shifted as well. ‘Must be the damn button to open the door, it broke when the latch did.’ I thought ruefully.

Shoving the door open the skittering sound was almost on top of us. “Go!” I shouted at Talass as I grabbed the spear from her hand and turned around to face the spiders. Her tail was long enough that she would need more time to get through the doorway than I did.

Taking a few steps into the tunnel the spiders were on me before I had managed to make it more than 5 feet from the doorway. It was fortunate that Talass had curled up her tail in preparation for a fight otherwise they probably would have been trying to eat it already.

As a spider leapt towards me I intercepted it with the ball of water, it hit the water with a splash causing some of the water to spill off in all directions despite my best efforts.

The spider’s jump had been strong enough that two of its legs managed to push through the water and wave at my uselessly.

Stabbing through the water with the spear it sunk into the creature easily. I pulled backwards, holding the water in front of me intercepting spider after spider the water ball slowly shrinking with each impact. I stabbed at the spiders whenever I could but I was mostly hoping to encourage them to turn on each other, rather than actually kill any of them.

By now the water had shrunk to the size of a volleyball from the size of a medicine ball and I was having a hard time controlling it, most of the water having been replaced with blood, which was much more difficult to control with my magic. Making a decision I started drawing on the taint and immediately controlling the blood/water mixture became as simple as breathing. I slashed back and forth injuring spider after spider.

“Hurry!” Talass shouted from very close to me.

Realizing that I was almost in the doorway I intercepted one more spider with the water, kicked it for good measure, then turned and slid through the already mostly closed doorway.

Talass shoved it closed with a grunt of exertion and I threw myself on it as well as I felt the spiders thump against it on the other side. The door rocked open with each hit, but after a minute the thumping stopped and I swore I could hear squealing from the far side of the door as the spiders turned on their injured brothers and sisters.

“Find something to hold it closed!” Talass shouted.

I was about to tell her she should and I would hold the door closed when I realized that she had her tail stretched out behind her and she was bracing herself against the door using all of her muscles to hold the door closed.

Looking around I took stock of the room as quickly as I could. It was roughly 15 feet by 30 feet, and it was filled with shattered and broken pottery, some shelves that were more rotted planks than anything, and much to my horror, spider webs.

I ran to the shelves and smashed it apart with my bare hands looking for any part of it that was still relatively intact. I managed to find a piece of wood that didn’t crumble when I picked it up. Using my knife I quickly carved it into a rough wedge shape and kicked it into a crack at the bottom of the door.

“Give it some room.” I said as Talass and I backed up from the door ready to shove it closed again if the wedge failed.

The door opened a crack as the spiders crashed against it again and again. But this just forced the wedge in more and more until the door stopped moving despite the furious thumping sounds on the other side of the doorway.

I stepped closer to the crack, spear held in both hands, having lost control of the last of my water when I carved the wedge.

A spiders leg shot out of the crack and started waving in my face, the small hairs on the edge of the appendage hitting me in the nose.

“Christ!” I yelled striking at the leg with my spear.

I stabbed at the limb until it retreated behind the door again. I threw my body against the door closing it and kicked the small wedge under the door sealing it shut. The door shuddered just a little as the spiders threw themselves against the door, but it was solid stone and the spiders lacked the mass to force it open.

“He got me in the nose.” I exclaimed to Talass turning away from the door.

“Quiet!” She yell-whispered to me as she pointed at an open door on the far side of the room looking spooked.

Looking at the door I tried to see what had her so worried but only saw a handful of old cobwebs, alarming certainly but not surprising.

Walking over to her I looked through the doorway into the open area beyond. There hanging from the ceiling were four large bundles of cobwebs. They bulged out strangely in their middle, and all of them had a dirty spot on the bottom. I started to wonder how many layers of cobwebs would need to be stuck together to make a shape like that, but I didn’t see anything that alarming.

Taking a closer look and it was then that I saw that what I had taken to be just dirt was actually the rust red of old, dried, blood, and the lumps at the bottom were animals heads sticking out of the cobwebs.

Approaching the doorway I looked out and saw dozens of animal corpses all hanging from the ceiling. Some old enough that they had started to mummify, and others still that were fresh enough that they were dripping onto the ground. One such cocoon was even struggling still as whimpers came from its form.

And on the outside of the cave were hundreds if not thousands of spider eggs.

We’d found the spiders' lair.