In moments, the formerly peaceful cave turned into a hornet’s nest.

Dawn stayed in her corner, deep in the shadows, stealth activated as she wrapped herself around Ankou. They couldn’t see exactly what was happening outside in the cave, but clicking sounds and large shadows that darkened the opening of the room in passing time and again, led her to believe that the demons were roaming around avidly.

Movement at the door made her shrink back, squeezing herself into the corner. She could distinguish the long legs of a gray demon fumbling around and realized what was happening only a moment later, when threads began to appear, spanning the opening. The spider was weaving a web in the aperture.

‘They’re closing off the exits,’ she thought. ‘What a fine mess to be in. Stuck in a room with these things on the warpath.’

She hadn’t truly expected the demons to react to her bonfire. ‘Guess I wanted them to be stupid,’ Dawn berated herself. It was too late to go back and change her actions, however. And she had gotten some levels out of the experience. Nevertheless, maybe it had been a bit short-sighted. Getting out of the cave undiscovered would be a lot harder now. ‘Live and learn,’ she thought wryly. She was especially interested in the living part. Silently she watched as the web began to take shape. Finally the demon was satisfied with its work and the legs vanished.

Dawn looked at the web in the doorway and wasn’t sure if she should feel afraid or safe, enclosed in the room. “Let’s simply hunker down here till all the excitement dies down outside, Ankou.” She whispered, deactivating Shadow Play.

“Always best not to meet demons,” a scratchy high voice whispered next to her.

Taken aback, she turned to look and saw that the furry creature she had rescued from the cocoon had opened its eyes and was looking at them out of huge silver eyes, triangular ears quivering nervously. It was looking kind of fox-like and cuddly. Though its short snout was filled with very sharp teeth, too.

“Oh, you’re awake,” surprised it was talking to her, she looked it over, curious now. “I was afraid you were dying.” She said.

“Think almost died, yes,” it agreed. “Demons took me, and all black then. Wondered why still alive. Demons not let go food.”

“Well, we sort of stumbled upon you by accident when we went exploring the cave.” Dawn explained in a soft voice. “You were all wrapped in some kind of cocoon. I was pretty surprised to see you were still alive. Though I was afraid you were too far gone to help you. I couldn’t wake you up. I’m Dawn, by the way, and this beautiful cat here is Ankou.”

“Demons have strong venom. Make food sleep first. Myself am called Kharma,” it said.

“Nice to meet you, Kharma,” she whispered. “We need to keep our voices down. I’d rather the demons don’t hear us talking.” Kharma inclined its head questioningly: “Most humans not like Kharlins, normally hunt, kill, not rescue from demons.”

“So you’re a ‘Kharlin’ then? I’ve never seen any of your kind before.”

“Kharlins very good at hiding, live underground, try not meet dangerous humans.” Kharma said.

“Hmm, but you didn’t manage to hide from the demons?”

“Kharma too curious, followed forbidden path deeper in mountains. Food almost gone around tribe, need to look in other places. Was warned by tribe. Other Kharlin hunting there never come back.”

“But you did know about the demons?” she asked.

Kharma flattened its ears. “Tribe know demons. Reason food almost gone. Why you come here? Humans not like be underground.”

“It’s a long story,” said Dawn. “I tried to hide underground from some hunters and then I found the ruins of a city and unfortunately these gray demons, too. And then suddenly the way back was gone. You don’t happen to know a way out of these gods-forsaken caves? I really, really want to get out of here. These spider-demons give me the willies.”

“Not know exactly where here is. Kharma asleep when brought by demons.”

“Oh, you’re right. I kind of forgot about that. We need to wait for a while, anyway. The demons are pretty unhappy that I destroyed their eggs. Guess it will take some time until they calm down. And we need some rest, too. We had a lot of excitement today, Ankou and I.”

Dawn thought it would do them both good to rest for a while. And she needed to distribute her stat points and pick her new skill, too. Though, how they could get out without alerting the demons was a good question. A destroyed web in the opening to the room would leave quite an obvious trail. The monsters weren’t that stupid. Shadow play could hide her, though of course it wasn’t a guarantee, and she couldn’t keep it up all the time. Ankou was really very good at playing ghost, too. But she didn’t know about Kharma.

“Dawn destroy demon eggs? Is hero!” Kharma’s ears pricked up.

“Hmm, or maybe I’m too stupid to live. If I had left the eggs alone, we could have tried to evade the demons and look for a way out unnoticed. It’s going to be a lot more difficult, now that the demons are searching everywhere.”

“Less new demons always good.”

“I can’t disagree with you there. I don’t care for these monsters, either.” Dawn smiled. “I need to rest for a while, Kharma. Let’s see about escaping in few hours or so.

He nodded. “Kharma watch for demons. Dawn rest now.”

Dawn took a moment to think about her stat point distribution and decided to put two points in endurance, one point in intelligence and one point in wisdom. Maybe that would help her to make some smarter choices in future. Though her decision to destroy the eggs was not all bad, of course. A new skill point was precious. Though of course not very useful if she was dead.

She called up the list of her class skills and was excited to see some new choices.

Available class skills

Entanglement (Spell)

Nature will come to your aid and entangle your enemies. Use plants and roots to slow down and trap beasts or humans.

Mana cost: 50 MP

Alchemy

Use plants, animal components and minerals to brew potions, medicines or poisons.

Call The Lightning

Call down lightning to strike and injure your enemies. Damage depends on the particular enemy’s resistance to lightning. Has a chance to paralyze the enemy for 5 seconds.

Mana cost: 100 MP

Cocoon Of Shadows

Envelop yourself in a cocoon of shadows that absorbs a part of your enemy’s strike against you. Absorbs 40 HP of damage.

Mana cost: 70 MP

She read through the list and would have loved dearly to take all of the skills. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option. What to choose?

Entanglement, though a powerful skill, wouldn’t help her here underground. Plants were scarce in these caves. Alchemy was of no use in a fight, and she didn’t have the equipment to brew anything here. So those skills were out for now.

Cocoon of Shadows would save her from harm, or at least from a part of said harm. It was a very valuable skill. But still, she urgently needed a way to fight the spider-demons. Fighting against these beasts with a knife was ridiculous. Call The Lightning would help her to fight them from afar. That was good. Though the mana cost for the skill was insanely high. She could only use it once in a fight. Nevertheless, it was her best option. She just had to make it count.

Call The Lightning it was, she decided.

Afterwards Dawn lay down and dozed for a while, but couldn’t find any real rest, thoughts of demons and escape plans circling in her head. Sighing, she sat up again. All seemed quiet outside. Ankou had rolled himself up in a circle and lifted his head when he heard her move. Kharma was sitting, eyes wide open, ears cocked, looking in the direction of the opening.

“All quiet. Demons not move anymore.” He told her.

Dawn looked at Ankou. “What do you think boy, time to get out of here?” She had a sense of hesitancy from him, but she was antsy now. And pretty hungry too. When was the last time she had eaten anything? Quite a while ago. And Ankou hadn’t had any food for even longer.

She approached the webbed opening tentatively, and sighed. “No way to get out of here without destroying the web.” She took out her knife, when Kharma said, “Kharma help.”

“I can cut down the web, no problem.” Dawn replied, but he said: “Dawn wait. We get out without cutting web.”

“Huh? How?” Astonished, Dawn lowered her knife. Kharma started to hum softly and pointed at the wall next to the doorway. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the wall seemed to melt away from the web. A small gap was opening up between the webbing and the wall on one side, only half as high as the original aperture. Over the course of several minutes the gap widened, until finally it was big enough that even Dawn would be able to duck through. Kharma stopped his humming. He was breathing hard, obviously exhausted.

Astounded, Dawn looked at the new opening and said: “Wow! You’re a miracle, Kharma.”

Kharma grinned, inclining his head, snout open and tongue peeking out to the side. “Kharma stone-singer. Useful sometimes. Not for fighting, though.”

Kharma approached the opening and slowly stuck his snout outside, looking around. “See no demons,” he reported.

Dawn told him: “Let my go first, I have a stealth skill.” He nodded. Dawn activated Shadow Play and carefully crept out though the gap. She didn’t see any movement in the cave. Standing still for a long minute she took her time looking around carefully, then whispered. “No demon in sight.”

Turning to the right she followed the path along the water. There had to be a way out of the cave on this side somewhere. She was walking slowly and carefully, watching out for any movement left, right and in front of her. When she was passing between a big rock on her left and the wall, she tripped suddenly, falling down on her hands and knees awkwardly. Ankou who had followed close behind, stumbled into her. Bewildered, she stood up again and noticed, that she had tripped over a thick, rope-like thread of webbing, spun between the rock and the wall on the level of her ankles. Thinner, almost invisible threads led up from there to the ceiling.

Slowly, with a feeling of doom, she looked up to the ceiling, only to see two enormous spiders to the right and left of her, lowering themselves down on her position rapidly and silently.

'In case of stupidity, even a stealth skill is useless.' She thought with ice-cold clarity.