"Mother is dead!"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

"Find the dwarf?"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

"Ravage his body and drink his bones!"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

The Fiend-Spider's voices are an encompassing whisper that vibrates the air and fills my mind with their intentions and hunger. My Identify goes into overdrive as their individual status screens clog my vision until my mind screams for a simpler display. The ability compiles as instead of a running list of their individual numbers. I see a simple name and 3 bars, color-coded red, grey, and blue to represent Health, Stamina, and Mana. But that's only fractionally better because it makes things even more terrifying; now I can accurately count the number of spiders leaving the prison, as opposed to the giant blob of brown and red that is streaming into this underground catacomb with me. Only when several of them suddenly lose mana do I remember my first imperative.

RUN!

My legs pump as hard they can as I go careening down the hill of broken walls and torn iron doors. I can feel the instantaneous heat of gallons of digestive venom slamming into the spot I just was, the bubbling miasma not melting so much as corroding whatever it landed on. No doubt designed to paralyze me so that the army of eight-legged monsters can take their time deciding who gets the first bite.

"He evades us?"

"No, no, no!"

"Surround him!"

"Yes, yes, yes."

They start dropping from the ceiling, the big and small ones, some landing on the junk pile, others landing around the underground sewer, and some trying to land on top of me.

"Cold Extremities." The spell roars to life, and I point to the ceiling as they fall. Something in my brain clicks, and Extended Touch Range is activated. Its short 1-meter radius gives me a baseball bat of cold power that fizzes and sparks with icy energy. The first spider, a baby the size of a golden retriever, touches the extended beam and instantly curls up and dies mid-air.

You've done 16 Cold Damage

You have gained 25 EXP from Killing Baby Fiend-Spider

Didn't know I could do that, but I don't have time to admire my newfound abilities. I have more running to do, and my stamina is rapidly depleting between sprinting downhill and the cost of Frost Armor. I have maybe 15 seconds before I find out what reaching zero stamina rewards me, and I'd rather not find out while I'm surrounded by monster spiders the size of greyhound dogs and buses.

So I desperately look around for anything in this place not swarming with eight-legged monsters (hard to do), and find something close to an escape. I don't have to look long, it would have been impossible to spot without my dark vision, but I can see, across a moat, a metal door that looks sturdy and is slightly ajar. There is no water where the moat is, only a narrow drawbridge with safety handles to prevent people from falling in, which in this case would have been a rather decent fall to the bottom of god knows where. A part of me wonders whether this place was really a sewer or an aqueduct in its heyday, but considering the persistent smell and being below a prison, my money is on sewer.

I won't make it with Frost Armor on, so I dismiss the spell and run as fast as my little legs can take me. This is, of course, a losing proposition. I'm at best running at 15 miles per hour; everything around me can do that without getting winded. A football field separates me from escape as I use Cold Extremities to wack at anything that gets too close, which is everything!

This leads to another problem, while I had Frost Armor, Cold Extremities was taking a chunk out of the temporary HP granted from Elemental Armor. Which, come to think of it, is a good way to get around the slowly dying theme of the spell as my hands literally freeze off trying to keep the magic going. But on the other hand, without Frost Armor...

Not going to spell that out to myself. So I focus on running and swinging my arms like I have two baseball bats attached to them and trying not to think about how quickly I'll die if I trip or get bitten by one of the baby spiders or get hit by projectile venom. I try not to think about it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

You've taken 28 Poison Damage!

My right calf burns with something wet and hot, and I cry in pain as I nearly stumble and fall face-first into the dirt. I keep my balance as my mind goes to the "Armor of the Archfiend" loot I was so excited to get 2 minutes earlier-

Equipment

Armor of the Archfiend :: Armor set derived from the corpse of an Archfiend, minor bonuses to physical resistance and poison is the most it offers

Armor class : Light

The part of me that hates myself keeps reading the words "minor bonus" over and over again. However, due to still needing to run for my life, the frustration doesn't boil over as my run turns into a one-legged hobble. If I wasn't about to die, this would make sense. Spiders this big have to be cannibalistic in nature. They wouldn't evolve to be immune to their own poison. But right now, the only thing I can think is-

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCK!"

The numbing pain spreads from my calf to my ankles and toes and up my leg. It's as if the venom soaked through the light armor and is now seeping into the exposed skin underneath. Every half step I make with that leg becomes excruciating, and every conscious effort to push myself almost drops me on the ground. My Character Sheet pops up to remind me that I'm running out of Health, Stamina, and Mana-

Character Status

Health : 18/63

Stamina : 10/39

Mana : 47/85

Conditions : Numbness (Loses feeling in affected limb, can lead to Paralysis and Atrophy)

Only 20 yards separates me from the drawbridge. If I can make it... then what? Fuck, I can't even think right, my own tongue is heavier than my thoughts, and my thoughts are heavier than this busted leg. I gotta, I gotta... Feeling myself slow down here, turn off Cold Extremities. And when the power leaves my hands, I stumble and hit the ground in relief and exhaustion. And in my growing delirium, I feel the smooth hardness of the drawbridge instead of hard rugged stone.

Oh, I somehow made it. I try to climb up using the railing while the sound of multiple feet scuttling toward me at great speed is felt more than heard. Still, I definitely hear it, and that turbocharges my panic to new heights as I limp and scurry up the rails before tripping over myself and falling again. But this time, I turn as I fall, so my back hits the ground hard.

Which is a good thing because the looming Ford pickup size Fiend-Spider was about to pump a year's worth of gas into my backside. I give him a full double-barrel blast of Cold Extremities, shutting off the magic before it can sap any more of my health. It screams as its face turns blue from the initial blast, as if I hit it with a metal baseball bat. But then it shakes the blow off and starts to approach me slowly, its brain now trying to understand my range. Its red health bar budges by a tenth, and the status menu lets me know that I gave it Frostbite and Chill.

Good, it'll be slightly uncomfortable before eating me. I scramble backward down the narrow bridge as it walks after me, confident and watching, estimating whether it can rush me faster than I can cast or if I have anything else that can hurt it. The other spiders watch this exchange, hundreds of them gathering along the edge, waiting for what happens next. In the narrow drawbridge with only emptiness on either side, I wish I had an AOE spell. I would have the advantage, and they've seen me use magic in my desperate attempt to get here. However, their hunger will inevitably overwhelm their caution, and they'll swarm the drawbridge and get to me before long.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. I feel so tired, so drained, and my leg is practically burning with how numb it is, how much it hurts to lose all feeling of control, how the slack muscles are dead weight that drains even more of my stamina. I have to do something because even the smartest, most cautious predator can't ignore prey that's literally on their last leg and getting slower and slower by the observable second. If it could do Inspect...

Oh yeah, it's out of mana. Must have tried to hit me with everyone else a minute ago with venom spit. I'm nearly out too, but... I grab the railing so hard my knuckles become white. I stare at the creature with every ounce of menace I can muster on a bum leg and scream to the Adult Fiend-Spider-

"FROST ARMOR!"

And then my brain clicks and uses Multicast and Extended Touch Range on the bridge while the spell flows down the railing. When the bridge hums with power, I smile and give the large spider the finger. I turn my back to it, calmly walking down the bridge, and after a moment of bewilderment, it screeches a challenge and rushes after me. I close my eyes and open my mind to the status menu to steel my nerves for what will happen next.

You see, as I undoubtedly get killed by a giant spider, I think about how I killed its mother. I remember casting Frost Armor unintentionally on the spear, meaning that I can imbue objects with Frost Armor's protection. And that spear, while it didn't do much damage, must have continuously treated being stuck inside the ArchFiends eye as an attack. Which means contact with an object affected by Frost Armor counts as an Attack.

So what happens when an eight-legged monster speeds up to me in an attempt to take advantage of a perceived moment of stupidity?

I turn around just in time, and with what little mana I have, I cast "Cause FEAR!"

The extra emphasis and the boom of my voice, no doubt enhanced by Mana, echo as the spider is inches away from sinking in its fangs, its face twisted in desperation and rage. And the status effects pour in through the status menu-

You've applied FrostBite to Adult Fiend-Spider.

You've applied Chill to Adult Fiend-Spider.

You've applied FrostBite to Adult Fiend-Spider.

You've applied Chill to Adult Fiend-Spider.

You've applied FrostBite to Adult Fiend-Spider.

You've triggered FrostBorn gain 1 Health, 1 Stamina, and 3 Mana.

You've applied Chill to Adult Fiend-Spider.

You've triggered FrostBorn gain 1 Health, 1 Stamina, and 3 Mana.

You've applied FrostBite to Adult Fiend-Spider.

You've triggered FrostBorn gain 1 Health, 1 Stamina, and 3 Mana.

You've applied FrostBite to Adult Fiend-Spider.

You've triggered FrostBorn gain 1 Health, 1 Stamina, and 3 Mana.

You've applied Chill to Adult Fiend-Spider.

You've triggered FrostBorn gain 1 Health, 1 Stamina, and 3 Mana.

You've applied FrostBite to Adult Fiend-Spider.

You've triggered FrostBorn gain 1 Health, 1 Stamina, and 3 Mana.

You've applied Chill to Adult Fiend-Spider.

You've triggered FrostBorn gain 1 Health, 1 Stamina, and 3 Mana.

You've applied FrostBite to Adult Fiend-Spider.

You've triggered FrostBorn gain 1 Health, 1 Stamina, and 3 Mana.

You've applied Chill to Adult Fiend-Spider.

You've triggered FrostBorn gain 1 Health, 1 Stamina, and 3 Mana.

You've applied FrostBite to Adult Fiend-Spider.

You've triggered FrostBorn gain 1 Health, 1 Stamina, and 3 Mana.

What was hunger is now pain and confusion, its limbs blue, the hair stiff, its eyes burning with panic, and when the Cause Fear hits him-

You've applied Terror.

In an attempt to escape, it merely jumps down the chasm. I watch its brown and black form tumble off the map, with merely a quarter of his HP gone. Dumbfounded, the only reasonable explanation is that I somehow drove it insane.

You have gained 600 EXP from Killing Male Adult Fiend-Spider

And with all the baby spiders I killed today-

You have Leveled UP

In pain and exhausted, I still scream, "Come get some!" and while at first, some baby spiders attempt to touch the bridge, they instantly regret it. And with the way blocked by invisible power the army of Fiend Spiders start to disperse as rapidly as they came.

So I turn around and continue making my way to the one exit I hope leads out of this damn place as I hobbled over to the big iron door that is cracked ajar, waiting for an injured, one-legged dwarf to see what else is behind door number one.

***********

Character Sheet

Name: Mike Sammons

Race: Dwarf

Origin : Hills

Stats : Level 7

Strength : 7

Dexterity : 6

Intelligence : 7

Wisdom : 10

Constitution : 7

Charisma: 1

Bonus Stat Luck: 12

UnAllocated Points : 20

UnAllocated Class Points : 4

Character Status

Health : 28/63

Stamina : 20/39

Mana : 77/85

Conditions : Slight Numbness (effects of the poison has dulled due to regained Health)

Class Sheet

Class : Wizard

Level : 3

Spells Book : Tome of Mike

Cold Extremities_Lv 3:: Active Spell_Cost 14 Mana_ 1 Second Cooldown_You remove the warmth from things you touch. Deal 16 Cold Damage per second with a 25% chance of causing Chill and Frostbite. Lose 3 health per second the longer this ability is active. You can activate this ability on each extremity. Scales with Intelligence and Constitution.

Frost Armor. _Lv 3:: Active Spell_Cost 25 Mana_ 5 Second Cooldown_ Give a protective layer of Ice on a target object or creature you touch. Target gains 95 points of Elemental Armor however they lose 3 Stamina per second. Has a 50% chance of applying Chill and a 15% chance of applying Frostbite to Melee attackers. Scales with Intelligence and Wisdom.

Cause Fear. _Lv 1:: Active Spell _ Cost 10 Mana_ 3 second Cooldown_ Your perceived combat prowess has allowed you to manipulate the hidden Stat Will. Enemies you target within a short cone are forced to reconsider attacking you and have a 20% chance of being effected by Terror. Scales with Wisdom and Charisma.

Passive Skills

Identify. _Lv 1 :: Allows you to see the first page of a Character Stat sheet.

Reduced Spell Cost Lv 1 :: Spells you cast cost 5 Mana less.

FrostBorn :: You have an increased chance of applying FrostBite and Chill. Also anytime you apply FrostBite or Chill to a target above 3x stacks gain 1 Health, 1 Stamina, and 3 Mana.

Extended Touch Range :: Spells in touch range can either remain touch spells or shoot out in a straight line for 1 meter (about the size of a baseball bat).

Multicast :: Reduce the effectiveness of a spell by 40% to increase the number of times that spell is cast by 2 at no additional cost.

Glossary of Status Effects

Concussion : The body loses consciousness from anywhere between 1 minute to 2 hours

Chilled : The body becomes so cold that you lose Stamina at a rate of 2 points per second.

Elemental Armor : It is temporary HP that provides no additional resistance against physical attacks, but bonus resistance against all other elemental attacks. Also confers 80% elemental resistance against attacks from a particular damage type. For example Frost Armor gives the target 80% resistance against Cold Damage.

Frostbite : The body becomes so cold that some parts lose circulation all together. Enemies with Frostbite lose 4-7 health per second.

Terror : The drastic loss in Will has caused the afflicted to flee in fear. 10% chance at inflicting self harm. 80% chance to recover or not be affected if Wisdom is high.

Bleeding : Lose 1 Health and Stamina every 50 seconds

Deaf : Lose 80% hearing in one or more ears

Mild Concussion : Chance of getting a another Concussion is near 50% on the next blow to the head.

Insane : Expect irrational decision making

Near Sighted : Lose 20-50% of your ability to see long distance

Numbness : Loses feeling in affected limb, can lead to Paralysis and Atrophy