We headed over to the next cave area that was designated on the semi-transparent map overlay. It was only about an hour's hike from where we had camped. We came up to the cave entrance and breathed a sigh of relief. It didn't smell at all. I was very excited to have my kitty friend along for the ride this time.

"You want to come in with me?" I asked the big cat.

He tapped his paw once and focused on the opening.

I examined the door noticing that the entrance looked like it had been carved instead of it being a natural cave formation. I poked my head into the entrance and my ability confirmed my suspicions. The entrance chamber was almost perfectly squared with long benches carved into the far walls. I wondered who built this place and for what reason. It was clear that it hadn't been used for a while based on the massive amount of cobwebs and dust.

This room had a wide stairway leading downward opposite from the entrance. The carved stone steps were about eight feet wide and the walls and ceiling were smooth and squared. This level of precision carving had to be from an advanced culture or at least one that put its highest priority on craftsmanship. I was hopeful for the kind of loot I might find, but growing concerned at what happened to them.

At the bottom of the stairway was a large room with passages leading off from either side. We stood at the edge of the room and out in front of us, across from the stairway was a wall that I could just barely make out. It stood in contrast to the other perfectly flat walls because it appeared to have some texture.

"We should try to keep as quiet as possible," I whispered to the large cat who was naturally stealthy, "I don't think we are alone here."

Mr. Snuggles seemed to focus even more at that point and I realized that I wasn't completely sure how well he could see in the dark. It was now natural for me with my nightvision special ability, but I didn't want to put him in a situation where he was vulnerable to attack.

We walked silently over to the far wall and I saw that it wasn't just texture. The wall had a large relief carving of what could've been the people who lived here. The closest I had seen to creatures like this would be dwarves. I couldn't gauge height from the carving, but their height to width ratio was odd. They were muscular and looked more tone than chubby. In the image there was a group of the dwarves standing in a large squared room with gemstones and perfectly smelted bars of what I assumed was metal they had mined surrounding them.

It was all stone so I could only guess at what I was seeing, but it seemed plausible given the construction of this place. I looked at the passages leading off on either side of the room. This room mirrored the dust and cobweb aesthetic of the previous space, but one thing stood out that differed. There was webbing crisscrossing the passages on the right side of the room.

I thought it would be best to explore the non-webbed side first so walked over to the first passage to the left of the bottom of the stairs. I pulled my longsword and buckler out just in case. I came to the end of the square hallway and it opened up into a barracks-style living area. There had to be close to a hundred beds laid out in rows in the room. Each had a small footlocker at one end. As I walked through the aisles of bed I checked footlockers and each was empty. I got to the end of the room and it had ended up being about the size of a football field.

It was amazing to me that this was all carved out of stone and the sheer amount of materials that would have been removed was inconceivable. The beds were carved from rock and couldn't be picked up and the bases of the footlockers also prevented them from being moved, but the thin mattresses were ripe for the plucking. They may have been dusty, but they all seemed to be in good shape. I wasn't sure what I would use them for, but Mae said to pick up everything so I pick up everything.

We moved on to the next passage on the left side of the main room. It led to a room that was shorter than the last and much less wide. I was bisected by a rack system straight down the middle and the same racks were on both sides. It looked like it held weapons and armor at one point, but it was completely empty which made me very sad. I can only imagine the quality of the weapons and armor this race of craftsmen could've created. I walked all the way around the long rectangle of a room, finding nothing.

"I'm beginning to see a pattern here," I said disappointedly.

We checked the last non-webbed passage and it was similarly devoid of loot. This room looked like it had once been a mess hall. It had long tables with benches on either side running down the length of the room. Everything was cut from stone and attached to the floor so I moved on.

I walked over to the first passage and used my longsword to clear the webbing. We started down the corridor and the webbing became more frequent. We made it to the first room and it looked to be a meeting area of some sort with a single stone table in the center surrounded by individual stone chairs that were carved with intricate designs. There were a few dozen chairs and the table was large enough to give each a comfortable amount of space on either side. I speculated that this was a meeting area for the leaders of these people or something like that.

As I examined the designs on one of the chairs I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head to get a better look and as I did a spider the size of a dog lept through the air directly at me. Its fangs dug into my buckler and I swung my longsword at it as it struggled to free itself. My sword sliced four of its eight legs clean off and it fell to the floor unable to skitter away from a second strike that killed it.

"Icky," I said looking at the hairy spider mostly talking to myself. "I realize that spiders help keep the insect population down and have some utility in the world, but I really hate them."

I knelt down to loot the monster and the only thing that showed up in the grid was its fangs. As I stood up another launched itself at me, but Mr. Snuggles dispatched this one with a swipe of his claws.

"Thanks, buddy," I said to my feline friend, "I guess we need to kill the rest of these spiders."

I grabbed the fangs off that spider as well and we started investigating the rest of the room. By the time we finished clearing the remaining spiders, I had fifteen sets of fangs in my inventory. We walked out to the main room again and prepared mentally for the horrors of the second room. We went down the center webbed passage cutting as we went. This room had only a few of the large spiders but had something that we couldn't have prepared mentally for enough.

The room was maybe forty feet across and the same deep. It was open with no furniture except for built-in bench seating along each wall. A wave of disgust rolled through my body as I realized that there was a pile of egg sacs in the center of the room. Each looked like a cotton ball the size of a watermelon, but instead of deliciousness, each was filled with nightmares. My first instinct was to set them on fire, but something in me screamed that was a bad idea. The pile of egg sacs was about six feet across and stacked about three feet high.

I was trying to think of a way to destroy the sacs without letting any escape. I looked through my inventory and didn't have anything big enough to squish them all at once. I started to panic a little not knowing what to do with what I estimated to be tens of thousands of baby spiders.

I looked at the mountain lion that was also staring at the pile and asked, "You have any ideas? I have nothing in my inventory that could help." I paused thinking of what I had just said. "In my inventory?"

"Mae, I am currently out of combat and I have a question," I said. She flew into the room and looked horrified.

"I don't do spiders, Teddy, make it quick," she said looking uncomfortable.

"Can I take living creatures into my dimensional space?"

"You can't take sentient creatures into your inventory and if you could I'm sure anything living would die instantly based on what I know about dimensional space," she answered.

"Are spider egg sacs sentient?" I asked.

"If you try to pick up one of those egg sacs to put it in your inventory to kill it a couple of things could happen," she said looking queasy at the thought, "It could work and may kill the egg sac, it could not work and the sac could rip open and spill hundreds of spider babies everywhere, or you may not be able to even touch the egg sac without it breaking open. Let me leave before you try though."

I nodded at her and she flew out of the room. I opted to try for the inventory kill method and hoped for the best. I gingerly touched one of the top egg sacs and it didn't immediately split open which was already a win in my book. I gently lifted it with a hand on each side and separated it from the pile once I had it in my possession I tried placing it into my inventory. It popped out of existence in front of me. I checked my inventory and there it was. I walked over to the corner of the room to check Mae's theory about them being killed by entering my inventory.

The egg sac popped into existence in my hands and I gently placed it on the stone floor away from the rest of the pile. I poked the egg sac and felt no movement so I cut a gash in it and a few dead spiders about an inch across rolled out with curled legs.

"Thank all that is good and holy," I said out loud with a sigh of relief.

I went back over to the pile and began the slow and gruesome task of separating an egg sac and putting it into my inventory. I had to go slow so as not to disturb the others. After about an hour of killing baby spiders the easy way, the powers that be decided to make me kill them the hard way. As I pulled one of the last few sacs off of the stone ground I must've pulled a little too hard and the structural integrity of the sac was lost. It split down the middle and a wave of spiders cascaded onto the floor.

The undignified stomping and smacking lasted for much too long and was still the status quo after all the spiders were no doubt squished. Mr. Snuggles had instantly moved to stand on the bench to the side of the room and provided no help. I would stomp a few times then slap my shoes and pants to kill any that had managed to crawl on my leg. When the dust settled I went back to carefully picking up the egg sacs to kill them with my inventory. I guess I learned my lesson because I was much more careful with the rest and soon all the egg sacs were dealt with.

"Thanks a lot," I said to the big cat as we walked back to clear the last passage. "If I ever see a spider after this it will be too soon." I wanted to be done with this cave as soon as possible and resolved to try and clear this last room quickly.

As we neared the end of the last passage I was repeating my new personal mantra of "please no egg sacs". This last area was the only one with a door of any kind. There was a large metal door about eight feet wide and ten feet tall. It was wide open and we walked through it expecting more spiders. The room was almost as big as the barracks room but was filled with lines of large storage chests.

There weren't any egg sacs in this room which was a huge relief. There also weren't any of the dog-sized spider monsters here. As we entered the room, we realized that a single spider was its occupant. Unfortunately, this spider was the size of a sedan and its fangs were about a foot and a half each. My first instinct was to send a fireball hurtling towards the monstrosity, but I wasn't sure if that was a good idea in close quarters. It stepped towards us and I swiped at the closest leg barely nicking it with my longsword. I tried again as I side-stepped its lunge this time aiming for a joint in its leg, but missing with a similar amount of damage.

Mr. Snuggles flanked the giant spider and had bit down on one of its hind legs with little success. I had to try to find a weak spot as quickly as possible. It turned to focus on the mountain lion which I wasn't surprised it thought was the bigger threat. It hurt my feelings a little but it was understandable. When it turned I saw it had a disgusting set of spinnerettes on its spider hiney. I put my longsword away mentally and summoned my iron spear into my outstretched hand. I was only about a foot away from the beast so the spear appeared with at least 4 feet inside the monster. I tried to move it around a bit and then gave it a yank to do as much internal damage as possible but the spider jerked to one side and I went flying.

I hit the wall and fell to the ground losing almost a third of my health in the process. I used a healing scroll and got back on my feet. It had to have been seriously damaged but it was still lunging at Mr. Snuggles with gusto. I dodged through a set of legs and was able to jump on its back. It hardly seemed to notice until I conjured my longsword into its thorax and pulled with all my strength. I was able to create a foot-long gash that definitely posed a threat and it immediately lost interest in Mr. Snuggles and wanted me off its back.

I rolled off and onto the ground and it immediately turned to position its fangs for a strike. It pinched down on my calf and I felt my whole leg go numb. This strike was the opening the cat needed and he jumped onto its thorax clawing at the gash I had created. My other leg quickly followed in the numbness and soon I couldn't move my bottom half. The spider still flailed above me and a notification appeared in my blurred vision. By that time I was completely paralyzed and took an ill-timed nap.