Reud stands still, quietly watching Lilia and Bo make short work of the latest pack of spiders. The deeper into the dungeon they travelled, the more these monsters tried to ambush them. First, they’d only been attacked by those that randomly stumbled upon them, the spiders seeming more focused on feeding on the glowing plants than trying to kill them. Now, however, the attacks had become more intelligent. Coordinated ambushes and attempts to flank them whilst they are occupied with attacks from the front.

The more they fought, the more the mind directing the spiders seemed to learn, trying out new tactics. Not that it made any difference. Even though the mind was adapting, Reud’s skeletons were adapting faster. Any new trick thrown their way was quickly countered, the undead slaying the attacking arachnids with brutal efficiency.

“Reud, duck!” Lilia shouts.

Instantly, Reud reacts, dropping to the ground just before a shard of ice shoots over his head. Behind him, a hissing screech tells him the spell hit its target. Spinning, he finds a spider pinned to the wall by the ice shard, its long legs scrabbling at its slick surface. Yellow ichor oozes out around the wound, squeezed out by the arachnids frantic movements. Its movements slow, its screeches fading to wet gurgling, until finally it stops.

Absent-mindedly, Reud raises a hand, stepping towards it. It is only at the last moment he stops himself from trying to raise it. The mind was still connected to the spiders, even after their death. He didn’t want a repeat explosion shredding his clothing further. Any attempts to raise the creatures would have to wait until after the mind was dealt with.

Instead, Reud turns to the skeletons not currently in combat, picking off two to come back to him and watch the group's rear. Lilia shouldn’t have to be the only one keeping an eye out in all directions.

A pulse of mana floods through the air, and suddenly the spiders turn and flee back into the darkness. The skeletons go to chase, but Reud stops them with a thought. There was no way they’d be able to catch them away from the open passageway.

“Must be getting close now.” Lilia says, gesturing with her sword at a wall. The stone is mottled with greenish-silver flecks, glittering in the lantern-light.

“The mana is strong down here.” Reud says, running his hands over the wall. With his mana sense, he can feel the metal in the wall, the product of a constant bombardment of mana over hundreds of years. It would be perfect for their purposes, once it was safe to mine it of course. Once the dungeon boss was dead.

Every now and again, in the depths of dungeons dense with magic, a powerful creature would emerge. Warped and enhanced by mana to monstrous heights, blessed by Vistol to a far greater degree than their companions, these creatures would rise to rule their dungeon. As the dungeon boss, they exercise a dangerous level of control over the dungeon and its inhabitants, making it far more dangerous for any adventurer venturing within.

But, with greater risk comes greater reward. The body of a dungeon boss was a treasure in and of itself. Its mana-enhanced skin, bones, shell, or scales were the perfect ingredient for crafting enchanted weapons and armour. Its blood, fur, and other viscera were perfect for brewing all forms of potions and concoctions. Killing a dungeon boss could set an adventurer up for life, and as such there was often no end of people willing to brave the dangers of facing one.

Now that the supply of adventurers had dried up, the dungeons had largely been left untouched, the dungeon bosses along with them. There was no knowing how powerful the creatures had grown unchecked. Luckily, the creatures rarely venture from the depths of their home, their mana-bloated forms unable to survive for long outside the dense mana of the dungeon.

Reud looks around at the group. The undead are looking good, really good. Their bones are shiny and smooth, all the imperfections marring the surface having slowly vanished over the last few hours. Evidently, the mana of the dungeon was beneficial to them. Reud scratches his chin, thinking hard. Maybe once the dungeon is secured, this would be a good place to send the undead regularly, to keep them in top condition? It would certainly save him having to pump so much of his own mana into the task of repairing the everyday wear and tear.

Lilia is carefully cleaning off her blade, her brow furrowed as she focuses on her task. Her ice magic was impressive, especially given how new she was to the affinity. She had the experience of her other affinity to draw on, but still. It was some impressive improvements.

“Ready to move on?” Reud asks her.

“Just a bit more,” Lilia says. “Unlike you and Bo, I need a break every now and again.” She sits back against the wall, resting her head back against the stone.

Walking over to her, Reud pulls a waterskin from the pack on his back and offers it to her. Lilia gratefully accepts it and drinks deeply.

“How much deeper do we need to go, do you remember?” She asks.

Reud shakes his head. “The tunnels have changed too much over the years, I don’t know.” Putting his hand on the wall, he sends a little pulse of mana into the stone, letting it run out from the metal. “It’s hard to feel anything, given how dense the mana is. The passageway leads on a ways until...”

Then he feels something further on down the passage. A vast amount of the mana-sensitive metal stretches out in a large, hollow sphere. A cavern? The mana in the centre was especially rich, a swirling, chaotic nexus of the mana pulsing all throughout the dungeon.

“Actually, I think we may be even closer than we think,” Reud says. “A few minutes that way is a large cavern, with the highest concentration of mana we’ve encountered yet. If I had to guess, that's the boss's lair.”

Lilia springs back to her feet, her face lighting up. “Finally! I’ve been getting bored of fighting the same spiders over and over again.” She tosses the waterskin back to Reud. “What sort of creature do you think this one will be?”

Reud shrugs. “Hard to say, could be anything. Down here though, maybe another spider, or a cave scorpion. Maybe even some form of bat?”

“My money is on the spider.” Lilia says. “How about you Bo?”

Bo stares back at her in perfect silence. After a moment, Lilia looks to Reud. “What did he say?”

“Tough to know,” Reud says, shrugging. “Souls are pretty complex things, and digging through one to figure out what it is thinking risks destroying it completely.”

“We are really going to need to get a way for Bo to speak. It gets a little tedious when every conversation is one-sided.” Lilia grumbles.

Reud smiles. “I’ll do my best. Now, dungeon boss?”

Lilia nods. “Let’s finish this thing.”

***

“I knew it!” Lilia whispers, elbowing Reud. “See, spider boss.”

Reud peers over her shoulder. Ahead of them, the passageway opens up to a vast cavern. Long stalagmites and stalactites dot the room, making the walls look like they are bristling with spikes. Every surface glistens with the greenish-silver metal, almost none of the original stone remaining.

In the centre of the room squats a vast figure. A spider, as large as a house. Eight long, blade-like legs support a bulbous torso. Pale blue light shimmers from its exoskeleton, the same as the strange plants found all throughout the dungeon. Beneath its grotesque torso hangs a large sack, filled with eggs. As the spider moves, the sack swings back and forth, revealing the curled up figures of hundreds of tiny spiders within. As it turns, its face comes into sight. A mass of tiny eyes sits in the centre of a swollen face, vicious mandibles extending out beneath it. From within each eye shines a purple light.

“That sure looks like the dungeon boss.” Reud says.

“I really wish it wasn’t,” Lilia says. “That thing is disgusting.”

Reud squeezes her shoulder. “Lucky for us, it doesn’t seem to have noticed us yet.”

“That won’t be for long, one of its little servants could stumble across us any moment.” Lilia says.

“Right. Are you ready?” Reud says, feeling out to all the surrounding undead, strengthening the link.

Lilia nods, raising her sword. “Bo and I will go left, send your undead right. We’ll hit it from both sides.”

“Be careful, don’t take any unnecessary risks.” Reud says.

Lilia smiles back at him. “You know I won’t. Now, go!”

With a thought, Reud spurs the undead into motion. As one, they spring into motion, charging into the cavern. The group of six run along the wall to the right, the clink of bone on metal filling the air. It takes but a moment for the intruders to draw the giant spider’s attention.

An ear-splitting screech splits the air, loud enough to send lancing pain through Reud’s ears. Its legs crash against the ground as it spins its bulbous body towards the skeletons running around the cavern. A shiver runs through its body, powerful enough to dislodge several eggs from the sack swaying beneath it. A pulse of blue light flashes from its torso and the eggs burst open, unleashing four spiders that spring forward, skittering towards the undead.

“Right Bo, it’s our turn.” Lilia says. Hefting her sword, she springs into the room, running along the wall towards the left. Bo springs into motion behind her, the crash of his armoured feet echoing in the room.

Reud steps in and pressed himself against the wall, between a pair of stalagmites. Hopefully, here he would not get bothered by any spiders, allowing him to focus on bolstering his skeletons.

Reud sends a pulse of mana into the skeletons to the right, and they skid to a stop, turning to face the spiders racing towards them. Raising their weapons they brace themselves, barely even needing an instruction from Reud. Truly combat-trained undead.

Then, the two groups crash together. Surging into motion, the skeletons bash and hack at the newborn spiders, sending chunks of exoskeleton and globs of ichor spraying out in all directions. One spider darts through the attacks and slams into a skeleton, sending its bones bouncing off the metal walls.

The spider boss screeches as its children die in moments. It shakes its body again, scattering eggs out over the surrounding ground, its myriad of eyes focused on the flashing blades in the hands of the undead.

A pulse of freezing air washes over Reud’s face as Lilia unleashes her magic. A long blade of ice wraps around her sword, over doubling its length. Spinning on her heel, she swings it across to crash into the exoskeleton of the giant spider. The ice blade shatters into a thousand tiny shards on impact, leaving behind a shimmering cloud of white. Through that cloud bursts Bo, an armoured juggernaut of metal, his blade extended before him. He slams into the spot that Lilia struck. With a resounding crack, the blade pierces the spider’s exoskeleton, digging deep within.

The spider screeches once again, spinning its grotesque torso around to the source of the new threat, tearing the blade from Bo’s grasp. Dozens of eggs drop from the sack beneath it as it does, joining the others already scattered over the ground. It snaps out with its mandibles, just barely missing Bo as he springs back. The spider goes to follow, only to be stopped when a row of ice spikes bursts from the ground before it. It hisses and locks its eyes on Lilia.

Reud raises a hand to his skeletons, commanding them to take advantage of the spider’s distraction. Two spring towards one of the spider’s splayed legs, bringing the axes in their hands against the edge of the blade-like limb. The weapons screech across its surface, causing no visible damage. The spider barely even seems to notice. Reud frowns, commanding the other skeletons to run beneath its legs towards where Bo’s blade still hangs from the spider’s side, lodged into its exoskeleton. Maybe they’d have better luck at that weakened point.

Two axes come down onto the spider's abdomen but glance off. Another, with a mace, smashes into the pommel of the blade protruding from the spider’s side. Finally, that seems to have an effect.

With a sickening crack, a foot-long rent splits open the spider's carapace, sending a spray of yellow ichor bursting forth. The spider staggers to one side, unleashing another ear-piercing screech.

Right into Lilia’s blade. Its edge lined with white light, the sword cuts through one of the spider’s back legs at the joint, sending the blade-like limb crashing to the ground. More ichor gushes out as the spider flails in agony, its body pulsing with light. Lilia springs away, barely avoiding being impaled by the crashing of the spider’s blade-legs.

The eggs beneath it burst open, unleashing dozens of the spider’s arachnid brood. They surge out towards the closest threat, Reud’s skeletons, forcing them back before they can press their advantage, forming a living wall between the attackers and their mother.

The giant spider staggers back, the swinging its body from Lilia and Bo to the group of skeletons, seemingly unable to decide what is the bigger threat. A stalagmite shatters under its bulk, the sound briefly drowning out the skittering sound of the spider horde. Then, it stops.

The chaotic mana in the air stills for a moment. Then, it begins rushing into the dungeon boss, sucked into its body in an almighty surge.

“Lilia, it’s building some sort of magic!” Reud shouts to her.

“I got that by the fact it’s started glowing!” She shouts back.

The spider’s eyes blaze with purple light as bands of cyan radiance web out along its back, building brighter and brighter in pulsing waves. It arches up, lifting its forelegs above its bulbous head.

“Get back!” Reud shouts to Lilia.

She looks at him, then at the spider, then turns and dives behind a stalagmite.

Not a moment too soon.

The spider slams its legs down into the ground, bracing itself as the radiance drains from its body, the light sucked into a floating orb just before its face.

Everything goes still for a moment, the mana stilling, the spiders stopping. Only a dull hum from the orb remaining.

Then it unleashes.

A beam of light lances out from the orb, filling the air with a ferocious roar, smashing into the wall behind where Lilia dove. Chunks of metal and rock explode out, filling the air with dust. The spider swings its body around, the beam turning with it, destroying everything in its path. Stalagmites and stalactites alike explode as the beam scythes through them. Reud ducks down as the beam passes overhead, his arms raised to shield his face from the spray of debris kicked out in its wake.

His skeletons, however, are less lucky. Five of the six simply vanish and the beam hits them, blasting them into such tiny fragments that the animating spell cannot hold on. Reud grips his chest as pain lances through him, the mana he’d been pouring into the undead rebounding back into him.

Finally, the beam winks out of existence, leaving dancing after-images in its wake. The crash of falling rock replaces the roar of the magic, the cavern trembling from the destruction visited upon it.

“Lilia, are you okay!?” Reud shouts, wiping dust from his eyes. The place where she had hid was now nothing but a pile of rubble.

The rubble shifts, falling away to reveal Bo’s armoured figure, hunched over and encased in a sphere of ice. With a creak, he stands, shattering the ice in fragments.

“Never. Been. Better.” Lilia grunts as she rolls out from beneath him, glaring at the spider boss. “I’m going to kill that bug.”

“We can’t let it do one of those again, it’ll bring the whole cavern down,” Reud shouts to her, raising his hand towards Bo. “Keep it distracted, Bo will finish this.”

Lilia nods, her eyes lighting with amethyst light, a white glow encasing her body. She springs forward, each swing of her sword cutting apart one of the newly hatched spiders skittering forth from below their exhausted mother. Reud commands the remaining skeleton to join her in attacking, before turning his attention to Bo. Time to show this arachnid that it wasn’t the only one that could harness the dense mana in the air. The centuries charging the gems beneath Srinaber had taught Reud one thing, how to handle vast amounts of mana. And he had the perfect undead to use it all on.

Bo stiffens as Reud connects his mana to him. First, a trickle of mana flows along the link, bolstering the undead’s strength and speed to many times that of even the strongest man. Then a stream, enhancing him till he matches that of the strongest warrior-mages.

Then a torrent.

A sickly-green light begins to blaze from within Bo’s armour, shining out of the helmet and from each joint. Wisps of mana float off from his body, giving him a hazy, ethereal look.

Bo turns his head to look at the spiders skittering around the room, their mandibles gnashing as they search for an opening to attack the glowing woman slaughtering their brethren. Then, Bo explodes into motion. Springing forward, he crashes down on one of the closest spiders, crushing its body beneath his armoured boots. He kicks out, sending its ruined corpse sailing through the air, before grabbing one of its companions and ripping it in two.

“Reud! Hurry it up back there!” Lilia shouts, pointing her sword at the dungeon boss. The giant spider has backed up even further, squeezing itself between the stalagmites, its body pulsing with energy once again.

Reud casts his eyes around the room. There! The spider’s severed blade-limb. That would be perfect. Bo turns as his mental command, tossing away another ruined spider-body, before running towards the limb. Chunks of rock and pieces of spider carapace crunch under his bulky form as he charges towards his goal.

Leaping forward, he grabs the blade-limb and hefts it into the air as if it were as light as a feather. Turning towards the giant spider, he grips it at one end like a javelin, pointing the other arm towards the boss’s bulbous face.

Then his arm flashes forward. The blade-limb shoots through the air, looking like nothing more than a giant flying sword. In a flash, it slams into the spider’s face, lifting the creature from its feet and sending it crashing back into the wall behind it. The spider’s limbs go rigid, then begin to shake, tearing the walls and ground around it to shreds.

The light along its back surges, flickering in erratic waves, building as mana rushes into it. The spider screeches its ear-piercing screech, but this time it is tinged with a mortal desperation.

Suddenly, the light over the spider's back drains, sucked into an orb just barely visible within the spider's ruined head.

Then it explodes. The spider’s face and the front half of its body blast apart in a vile shower of yellow gore, the rest of its body slamming back into the wall behind it. A cascade of rock crashes down around it crushing what remains of the dungeon boss’s body until nothing remains but its seven blade-limbs poking out from the rubble.

The spider horde filling the room stop at the death of their mother. Then, they skitter away in all directions, squeezing into cracks and crevices all around the walls, until the cavern is silent.