Thomas' fist moved through the too-narrow confines, the enormous spider that was crawling down towards them splattering and smearing across the wall. The lightly acidic ichor burned; Thomas shook his hand slightly, but otherwise ignored it, turning as best he could in the tight space to glance behind him.

Anne and Arias were coming back up the corridor, bows drawn. He was relieved to see them, after the brain-rending shriek that had come echoing down the tunnel moments prior. Anne looked over Thomas – his enlarged form blocked her view of the tunnel – and then shifted up to his face.

“The roc noticed us.”

“We heard.” Madelaine covered her ears, and Norris and Anne both winced. Thomas tried to modulate his volume down a bit. “Can it get at us in here?”

“I don't think so, no. How badly are you hurt?” Thomas glanced at his health; still over two hundred.

“I'm good.”

“You're … alright.” Anne's attention turned back, and Thomas was distracted when something bit at his thigh; Thomas returned his attention forward, using a hand to flick the spider into the wall. A tingle ran through his skin; a weak venom. He was aware of pain from a dozen cuts, bites, and scratches, but was so far successfully ignoring it.

Thomas kept swatting the spiders that swarmed down the cave, even as the torches littering the ground for illumination flickered and began to fade. It was odd; walking through a spiderweb would have had him thrashing and maybe even shrieking, but he didn't really feel much of anything towards these oversized examples. Perhaps it was their size, however; the scary thing about spiderwebs wasn't that there would be a spider on him, but that there could be a spider on him that he couldn't find.

These were just … large bugs. Large bugs that moved in a creepy way, that … the shit was that?

“Anne?” Okay, that was fucking scary. “One of the spiders had a face. Kind of a face. It's hiding now.”

A curse, behind him. There was shuffling, but – hey, that was pretty. A woman was singing. His mother was singing to him; why was he fighting? He could go lay his head in her lap, and she'd take care of this. His mother stepped back out from behind a rock, her smile beautiful as she sang quietly, although of course she didn't have teeth, or lips, or a mouth. But her smile was beautiful.

He started crawling forward towards her; bugs crushed under him. Somebody was saying something, somebody was touching him, but that didn't matter. Her wordless singing was lovely, and he could lay down, and everything would be okay. Her eyes wrinkled as she smiled and laughed, singing her lovely song – not that she had eyes, but her eyes were beautiful, framed by her long black hair.

His mother reached for him with three hands; he reached for her, but couldn't quite make it, so shifted back to crawl once more down the tunnel. He was too big, he needed to be smaller to fit; he let himself shrink, and stumbled to his feet, to begin walking – and somebody grabbed him, pulling him back; he shrugged out of the grip on his shoulder, but another hand grabbed his forearm, and then another, and his mother was right there, her smile wonderful on her blank face, reaching out with four hands now, and –

And with a sharp pain that filled his skull from ear to ear, silence hit him like a brick. Thomas stumbled, jerked, twisting his head to try to catch the melody – but it was gone. He reached up for his ears, started, feeling blood pour from – then he saw the spiderlike thing that was watching him with a featureless, blank face, tangled and matted black hair descending around the not-a-face, bare skin – fucking hell, Thomas fell to the ground and started scrabbling away, running into somebody's legs almost immediately; Anne's, to judge by the longbow that appeared over him, an arrow dripping blood released into the air a split second later.

Spiders died around them, Arias moving into the center of the hallway, her swords a blur that sent ichor and spider legs flying around her. The blank-faced thing was gone, but the spiders kept coming, in an even denser wave. Arias' long hair was matted with blood, and as Thomas looked around, he saw that everyone's ears bled profusely. Thomas tried to get up, and immediately fell back down, the room swimming around him, adding to the confusion of the flickering torchlight.

He pulled up his health, and stared at it in shock and surprise. Sixty seven, out of two hundred and sixty six. It had been over two hundred just a few moments before; what had happened? His hands probed at his flesh, searching for new wounds. Scrapes, scratches, bites. Tingling, burning spots where venom still tingled.

He hesitantly examined his ears; they were … definitely punctured, cuts like … like somebody had simply stabbed his ears. Which is probably what had happened, to deafen him against that … against that thing. But if that had done that kind of damage, everybody else would be dead, instead of … he tried to look around very slowly and carefully. Norris was also fighting, with little sparks of light. Madelaine, however, was also on the ground, arms wrapped around herself as she stared off into nothing. Blood leaked from her nose and eyes.

He reached up – no, his hands were covered in blood. He tried to wipe – no, his clothes were torn up down the cavern, ripped apart when he'd grown larger to fight. He used a clean part of his wrist; his nose was also bloody. It was hard to tell if he was bleeding from his eyes; they definitely felt … wrong. But he felt wrong.

He shook his head, trying to focus again. There were dead spiders everywhere. Norris was sitting down. Arias was leaning against a wall. Anne still had her longbow drawn, searching. The silence had given way to a kind of wailing ringing sound, which filled his mind. Okay. Focus. It was really, really hard to focus. They had suffered some kind of … sonic attack?

No. Yes. Thomas blinked; there was darkness, and then there was a campfire going. Somebody had swept the spider limbs to the side of the cave. His skin wasn't itching any more; the venom was gone. Somebody was there, then not. Time … wasn't … working. His brain wasn't working. Not sonic attack. Mind attack. The … thing. It had been … it hadn't been his mother. He couldn't remember his mother. That whining noise was very annoying. He breathed in, breathed out, looked around. Everyone was asleep. No. Madelaine was also sitting up, staring ahead vacantly. Arias was standing guard. Somebody had draped a blanket around Madelaine's shoulders. Thomas wondered if he looked like that. He reached up absently; somebody had put a blanket over him, as well. He probably did look like that, then. Okay. Sleep.

That noise was very annoying. He closed his eyes anyways. He opened them again. Everybody was awake; rocks had been moved to barricade the tunnel in the direction of the lake, keeping the spiders out. Thomas looked around. Madelaine had been cleaned up; her face wasn't covered in blood anymore. She was moving around, but still looked only half-awake; cloth bandages wrapped her head. She looked sad.

Thomas looked down at his hands. He had been cleaned up too. He touched the bandages over his ears. He started to slowly try to puzzle together the previous evening; he remembered walking into the big cavern with the lake. It had been so pretty, he hadn't been looking for anything else. Then Anne had yelled something, and two torches has been tossed out into the darkness; a fire had started, sort of. The spiderweb didn't burst into flames the way wood did; rather, glowing lines of flame had darted down – not flames, but on fire, bubbling and smoking and hissing, a spiderweb that stretched out as far as they could see, in every direction. Not one spiderweb; many. Countless, overlapping. In places it burst into flame; there had been a face, in one of the countless webbed bodies.

They had retreated. Anne had run for the entrance; there had been a horrible noise. The roc had been waiting. Then that … whatever that thing had been. Thomas shook his head. So now they were here? He checked his health. One twenty four. He'd recovered somewhat; his mind felt … better. Not right. Some kind of mind attack? His mind certainly felt damaged. Somebody had stabbed out his ears, and then the … the thing, had left.

A commotion; he couldn't turn his head fast enough. Or maybe he'd imagined it. No, there were some spider corpses. Arias had neatly skewered three; Norris was dragging one around their campfire, towards the exit. Thomas looked at the pile of spider parts that had been made. Then looked back; Norris was seated again. Okay, that was fine.

Somebody fed him. Maybe. He didn't notice when it happened; he just noticed that he was thirsty, and his mouth tasted … flavorless. Less flavorful than nothing. Manna bread. Then he wasn't thirsty; and then people were sleeping. Madelaine was sleeping; he thought maybe she'd started moving around. Thomas looked around again. He lay on his side. His health was one fifty two.

Thomas pushed Norris back against the wall, stopping himself short of grabbing the mage's throat; his fingers brushed across Norris' neck, beneath the beard, but he contented himself with pressing on his sternum, as Thomas' face moved in, lips brushing lips. Norris smelled very lightly of sweat, very lightly of sulfur. He smelled delicious, and Thomas leaned down, biting into Norris' shoulder.

The mage moaned softly, his hands moving from grasping Thomas' forearms; one moved to wrap around his waist, the other to his head, fingers curling into Thomas' hair, pulling gently, but not so firmly as to pull teeth from flesh. Thomas licked, as he pulled away, and turned his gaze into Norris' eyes.

“I want to taste you.” That had been his voice? He barely recognized it, the growling animal tones, but he recognized the truth of it. Thomas ached at the thought, at feeling Norris' hips in his hands, holding him back as he bucked against the pleasure, at … Norris tightened his fingers in Thomas' hair, a fierce light in his eyes, and began dragging Thomas down. Thomas didn't resist, simply holding Norris' eyes as he let himself sink to his knees, his fingernails leaving red marks across Norris' chest.

Thomas grabbed Norris' belt, fumbling to unbuckle it without breaking their gaze. The buckle released, pants sliding down without further fight. Norris was fully erect, and Thomas leaned forward, lips sliding across warm flesh. He looked up into Norris' eyes, taking him into his mouth; hot flesh, yielding, he could feel Norris' quickening heartbeat, gazing up, watching for the shiver as he began to lick and suckle. Pain; he looked down at the knife in his chest. What? He looked up at the dark faceless figure staring down at him, a blackness absolute and a mouth full of too many teeth, and then he opened his eyes.

His ribs hurt. Thomas sat up, looked around. He pulled the blanket tighter around himself, but none of the others seemed to notice, or care, about either his state of undress, or his state of arousal. Thomas shook his head, checked his health. Two thirty seven. Okay. He was … that had been … he … Thomas frowned. It had been … more than a day, now? Two days? He didn't think it could be more than two days. He opened his mouth, started to ask – it was an utterly alien experience. He could feel the vibrations of his voice, but could not hear them. Shit. Okay. Nobody else appeared to notice; they couldn't hear either. This was … this was strange and alien. He looked around the cave, feeling kind of like he was seeing the world through a tunnel. Everything felt surreal, in the utter silence.

Thomas forced himself up, and forced himself to disregard his state of arousal – he did his best to cover himself with the blanket, but he was hungry. He moved to the fire, joining the others. Anne looked over, a concerned expression giving way to a smile. Norris offered him a chunk of bread; Thomas accepted it, nodding gratefully, and ate. It tasted of nothing. The water he drank tasted of nothing.

Madelaine looked to him; she looked … stressed. Unhappy. Sad. Arias looked tired. Norris looked tired, but … relieved. Thomas looked back towards the entrance, then paused, as he realized – if the roc was still out there, they wouldn't be able to hear it. And … he looked back in the direction of the spiders. He doubted anybody was still alive in that cavern. But … if there was somebody alive, they could … they wouldn't be able to hear anybody calling for help. Okay. But they could clear out the spiders. And that … and that thing. He sat up straighter, looking around again.

The others were looking at him. Anne's smile was somewhat more pointed; he pulled the blanket to better cover himself. That dream had been … well, he could think about that later, it wasn't important. Even if he did kind of want to go back to sleep and see where … no, focus. He looked at his health again, and tried doing some math in his head. He was able to think, time wasn't jumping around; whatever that faceless thing had done, he seemed to be over it. Thomas nodded to the others, and stood, letting the blanket fall away as he walked towards the pile of rocks, and began to clear a hole.