The rest of us enjoyed our dinner in peace. It turned out that not only was Torra’s Skill capable of substituting for butter and milk to make the mashed potatoes, but he was also able to make something that passed for gravy once I described it to him. It was white, and glowing, but the flavor was almost meaty. That was the most of the glowing liquid of his I’d eaten in a meal and I noticed then that the buff it gave me was stronger than usual.

Buff gained. Marketh’s Mercy. Hunger decreased. Maximum HP +2% HP: 92/100 >>> HP: 94/102

It wasn’t much of an increase, but the very fact that the buff could be increased at all opened up some potential I hadn’t considered. It made me wonder what the limits were. Mostly because the temporary HP it granted was a potential source of MP for me.

Victoria returned after everyone else was done eating. She didn’t say much except to confirm only seeing four spiders before taking her dinner and slinking away. She didn’t strike me as the sort of person who had an easy time admitting when she was wrong.

After dinner, I used the last of my MP to conjure with Manifest Inspiration again. Since I’d figured out that it didn’t so much have an object limit as a weight limit, I tried not to waste it by only conjuring a gun. In addition to the AK, I also imagined several wooden rods of different types of wood for Alloha and some bags of potato chips for Torra. It was maybe too much to focus on all at once, but I figured it was as important to practice pushing the limits of Manifest Inspiration as it was to practice shooting a gun. After all, how hard could shooting a gun really be? All you did was pull a trigger.

MP: 56/96 >>> MP: 1/96

I was careful to hold all the disparate images in my head at the same time, making sure to imagine the insides as well. For the AK-47 that meant imagining the way the cartridges were stacked in the magazine, as well how they were composed—the primer, some gun powder, then the bullet at the tip. When I opened my eyes the gun was there along with a pile of differently colored sticks and a single bag of chips. I’d been shooting for more than one chip bag, so I supposed I might have been pushing the limits of the Skill to the breaking point. By a count it looked like I’d managed to create six different unique items.

“What’s all that?” Torra asked.

“A lesson on not doing too much at once,” I said. I held up the gun. “I was trying to make this and decided to add some extras on top.” I tossed him the bag of chips. “There you go. Lays. Sour cream and onion. Give them a try. Maybe later we can try recreating them with potatoes.”

“More conjured food?” Torra asked. He pulled open the bag and gave it a sniff. “What’s that weird metal thing?”

I thought carefully about the taboo on black magic Skills before answering. Torra was the religious one of our group, and though he seemed pretty laid back I didn’t need to give him a reason to talk to his church about me when we got back to Haemir. Guns were made for killing, and only killing. I knew tools for killing should have been allowed—Torra carried a sword on his back, after all—but I also knew it would be all too easy for rissians to mistake the strange mechanics of technology for magic. If they thought guns were magic killing artifacts, I’d be in for some trouble. “This is… a human tool,” I answered carefully. “Think of it like a sword, just more complicated. It makes a lot of noise and is used to hunt monsters.” That was a murky enough gray area that I thought I might be okay. Earth didn’t technically have monsters, but that’s what I intended to use guns for while I was in Earris, so I thought it would probably be considered a true statement.

“How much noise?” Grant asked.

“The one you made last night didn’t make any noise,” Alloha chimed in.

“That one didn’t work,” I said. “And I really don’t know how much noise one of these is supposed to make up close. I’ve never actually used one before. That’s why I need to practice.” I kicked the rods of wood I’d summoned. “Alloha, these are for you. Play with them. See if they work any differently than what you’re used to. They’ll dissolve in an hour. I made four different types of wood for you. That white one is balsa, which is pretty light. The dark one is something we call ebony.”

Alloha picked up the dark rod. “Whoa,” she said, “I’ve didn’t know wood could get this heavy. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

“Have fun. If you hear some loud banging, just ignore it. I’ll try not to be too long.”

I walked further into the woods away from camp, using the flashlight on my phone to light the way. I made sure to head in the opposite direction of the spider nest, just in case the sound spooked them. Once I was far enough away I examined the gun more carefully. This time the magazine was able to slide in and out easily and I could see the bullets loaded into it. There was only the one magazine, but that seemed like more than enough to make sure everything was working like it was supposed to. I set my phone up against a tree behind me to light a small area of the forest, then aimed at the trunk of the nearest tree. It just clicked uselessly and for a seconds I was afraid I’d made it wrong again until I realized I had to chamber a round before firing. Once I was sure a round was chambered, I tried again.

Bang!

I held down the trigger, but only one bullet fired out. The gun kicked hard in my hand, but it slapped a chunk of wood out of the side of the tree ahead of me. I looked down and saw there was a metal selector currently set to “S” so I flipped it down to “F” which I assumed meant “Fully Automatic” which was what I wanted. I braced the stock against my shoulder and tried again, keeping the trigger depressed.

Ra-ta-ta-ta-tat!

It sort of worked, but also didn’t. It fired fine, but the kickback had me carving a line up the trunk of the tree. I gave it one more try, this time clenching my arms to keep it pointing more or less in a straight line. I drained the magazine and made an absolute mess of the tree trunk. Maybe only one in four bullets had struck the tree, the others flying off to either side as I tried to correct for the recoil. Nobody was going to call me a marksman any time soon, but for close range enemies it would still be functional. I’d get better with practice and there were tons more guns and other weapons I could conjure up from my video games once I was comfortable with this first one.

I thought about how tomorrow’s fight was going to go. Torra supposedly would run in close with his sword while the others provided ranged support. With where my accuracy currently was I’d have to make sure no allies were anywhere near where I was firing. I needed to think over my strategy. Maybe I’d have an easier time controlling a smaller gun. Possibly, though if I was going for a non-lethal option I could just use Static Bolt. I left the gun behind and returned to camp while considering if my MP would have been better spent practicing with my other Brands. Maybe all they’d need me to do is stay in the back and act as a healer.

“Marketh’s mercy!” Grant exclaimed when I returned to the light of the camp’s fire. “Torra told me you were going to be making some noise, but he didn’t tell me it would be that loud! It sounded like a thunder storm.”

“He didn’t tell me it would be that loud either,” Torra commented around a mouthful of chips. He held the bag up to me appreciatively. “I like these better than the last ones you made, by the way.”

Alloha was also snacking on the chips while she rotated two of the rods I’d made for her around her head in a lazy circle. The white balsa wobbled slightly, traveling half the speed the ebony rod was moving. “D’you have fun?” Alloha asked.

I shrugged. “It was informative,” I told her. “The main thing I learned was I’ll have to be careful tomorrow to avoid friendly fire. How are you liking the new wood?”

“Oh, this one is my favorite,” Alloha said, summoning the darker ebony rod to her hand. “I need to find more wood like this. It feels… stronger.”

“I can only make a small amount at a time, but it sounds like what you need is some denser wood. When we get back to Haemir you should see if anyone sells something like that. Maybe imported from somewhere else.”

Once again, Grant decided that it was late enough that everyone needed to head to bed. He said he wanted plenty of time the next day to gather up as much silk as we could carry before leaving. We talked strategy, and I was asked to stay in the back and get ready to heal anyone that got bit. I explained that I would bring a ranged weapon from my world and was warned not to resort to Fireball unless it was somehow life or death. Victoria was similarly warned off using her Skill to light the forest on fire, but I felt she wasn’t talked down to about it nearly as much as I was.

I conjured some water into the cooking pot before bed. We didn’t need the water so much as I needed the negative MP in order to fall asleep promptly. Sleep had never come easy for me before coming to Earris so I considered the ability to use this world’s magic to force myself to sleep at night a side benefit to being here. It was one of the few upsides.

The nightmare I endured was the same as before and I was shortly shaken awake by Torra again. The sun was up, but I could still see the red haze across the horizon that told me that hadn’t been the case for very long. “What’s for breakfast?” I asked Torra.

“No breakfast,” Grant said from nearby. I looked up to see him already sitting up on his bedroll. He had out a long knife and was in the process of honing the edge with a stone. “Not smart to eat before a fight,” he elaborated when he saw the question on my face. “Especially when fighting spiders. Their bite can make you sick.” I looked to Torra to see if the thing about breakfast was true. He just shrugged while frowning, which told me that he wasn’t any happier about it than I was.

“When are we moving in?” I asked.

“As soon as Vic is up,” Grant answered. “Jay is already over there taking a look. We want to be ready to go by the time the sun is fully up, which gives us a half hour.”

Torra woke Alloha after me, but she beat me out of bed. I took three minutes taking care of necessaries, then used Manifest Inspiration to conjure a weapon. Rather than take a chance, I went with the tried-and-true AK-47, but this time I added in as many fully-loaded magazines as I could.

MP: 96/96 >>> MP: 41/96

One gun appeared on the ground before me along with more magazines than I could ever hope to fire. I made a note to manifest bandoliers of ammo next time as I slung the rifle over my shoulder and looked for places to stuff the extra mags. I managed to shove four into each of my pockets, then another eight into the waistband of my pants, supported by that thick leather belt I’d gotten when I bought my spider silk tunic. It wasn’t exactly comfortable if I had to lean over, but for just walking and shooting I thought I’d be fine. I practiced dropping a mag, shoving a new one in, then sliding back the charging handle a few times. I wouldn’t call myself “fast” but I was at least able to get to the point of not fumbling around too much.

While I readied my gun the others checked over their own weapons. Torra used a massive two-handed sword, Alloha had her spear with a polished point on it, Grant wielded a dagger in either hand, and Victoria—once she was dragged reluctantly from her blankets just outside the camp—had a curved scimitar with a cage that wrapped around her hand. She strapped a small, circular shield to the forearm on her opposite hand. Jay returned with his bow already strung and in hand. His face was beaded with moisture. “Still clear,” he reported. “Same four from yesterday.” Everyone but Alloha and I were obviously wearing armor of some kind. I wasn’t sure if she had spider silk on under her shirt or not, but I mentally thanked her to helping me feel less under-dressed.

“Alright, we’re moving out,” Grant announced. “Torra. You and Vic take front. Alloha and Jay provide ranged support. I’ll run interference if any try to get past them.” He nodded at me. “New kid, be ready with that healing Brand. And don’t forget—”

“I know. Don’t use Fireball,” I finished. I swung the AK around and held it pointed to the ground. “I’ll be using this human weapon. It’s the loud thing your heard me testing last night.”

Grant nodded. “Right, do whatever you can from the back, but be ready for those heals if we need them.”

It didn’t seem like anyone was really expecting me to contribute much. I couldn’t wait to show off the power of the most basic of human military technology. We left the camp behind pretty much as it was and headed toward the spider nest with weapons drawn. I made sure my gun was set to full auto and had a round chambered, but kept it pointed to the ground. The nest was composed of a circle of trees with the lateral footprint of my house back home and a vertical area that looked like it towered maybe a hundred feet high. Torra led the way. He’d rubbed glowing oil on his blade and used it to gently cut a slit in the leading edge of the nest. The spider webbing was scattered haphazardly like a thin bed sheet stitched together by a drunken seamstress.

Inside the nest was noticeably darker than outside. The sun was coming up, so we could still see, it just took a little to adjust to it. Torra and his glowing sword was like a gently shining beacon to follow as he cut his way into the nest. I could see the spiders the others had scoped out in the middle of the circular space. They didn’t respond to our presence immediately. They were black many-legged horrors the size of large dogs. Above us I noticed a red haze in the air. Probably the cause of the decreased light, though I couldn’t piece together what could be causing it. The morning sun was more of a yellow and the only other light source was Torra’s white blade.

The spiders were spread out before us as we cautiously entered the net. Two were straight ahead, wrapping webbing around a cocoon that I assumed either contained a dead harpy or a sac of eggs. Another was climbing up the walls of the enclosure to our left, while the last one looked to be in the process of repairing the wall of webbing to our right. I was honestly surprised they hadn’t felt us stepping on the webbing that covered the floors, but reasoned that maybe the giant spiders in Earris weren’t as sensitive to vibrations as the smaller versions I was used to back on Earth. Grant tapped Victoria and Torra on the shoulder then motioned for us to huddle in around him for some last minute instructions. I was left trying to squeeze into the gap between Alloha and Jay in the back, not really feeling included.

“Alloha,” Grant started in a whisper. “You hit that one to the left with your spear.” He pointed to the spider higher up and far away. That seemed like a good option, since her Skill made her ranged attacks much more accurate. “Jay, you tag that one.” Here he gestured to the closer spider near the floor on our right. Jay already had his bow out with an arrow notched and two more squeezed between his fingers. He nodded seriously. “Torra and Vic. You’ve got the two in the middle. We’ll go on my signal and I’ll jump in to finish off any that survive the first attack.” He had long daggers in both hands that he held point-down. In truth they were almost as long as his forearms and might have qualified as short swords if I were the one using them. “Remember. Getting the kill is first priority. If you can avoid damaging the venom sacks in the process, that’s just bonus.”

I wasn’t given any specific instructions, but I kept my gun ready anyway. Maybe I could drop a few rounds in one of the spiders being targeted at range. I wasn’t comfortable offering support to Torra or Victoria, given my piss-poor aim. Grant held up three fingers. Then two. Then one. When he hit zero he hissed. “Go!”

Everyone moved at once. Torra and Vic charged forward side-by-side at the two spiders in the dead center of the nest. Alloha tossed her spear and Jay loosed his arrow. Silent. Deadly. They both hit their targets center mass. Alloha’s spear jammed in the side of the tree through the spider she’d hit, but the one hit by Jay’s arrow twitched and made a rapid clicking sound as it died. He immediately pulled back to stick it with a second arrow, but the warning it’d given the two in the center sprang them into an alert stance. Eight little bright spots on their heads turned to see the armored adventurers charging toward them. One of them leaped on Torra and he gave a mighty roar as he brought his sword up to slice it in half, green ichor spraying all around. It was overkill. The other one skittered for Victoria. She lunged forward and skewered it between its eight eyes. Its legs twitched for a moment, then it died. The one that had been hit by Jay shortly received its second arrow, which put it down for good. Neither me nor Grant had to lift a finger. It was over in seconds.

“Wow,” I said. “That was it? All this travel time and it’s over in five seconds?”

Alloha held her hand out and summoned her spear back to her. She gave a little chuckle. “The hard part will be the cleanup.”

“We had a good plan and good teamwork,” Grant said. He eyed me sideways and I could tell he was wondering what the point of bringing me along even was. I felt miserably useless. I thought I might be able to win some favor back by insisting on not taking any pay. Everyone knew I was just in it for the rank anyway.

I shrugged at Grant. “Eh, well. I guess neither of us were needed.”

His mouth pressed into a tense line. “You think I didn’t do anything? I coordinated this whole operation!”

“Relax,” Alloha said. “He didn’t mean anything by it.”

Grant returned his daggers to their sheathes at his belt while Torra did the same with his greatsword. “Well, he needs to watch his mouth,” Grant commented, very pointedly not looking at me while he spoke. “I don’t appreciate being compared to deadweight the guild made us bring with along.”

While Grant spoke, a clump of red haze separated from the larger mass hanging in the air above us. It was the strangest thing and I had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn’t just imagining it. This vague cloud of red smoke moved down the side of the tree behind Torra and Victoria. I pointed to it. “Hey, does anyone else see that?” I asked.

“See what?” Alloha asked, looking around.

“The red—er, I guess it would be green to you—sort of smoke in the air. It looks like it’s moving. It’s like a… descending fog? I don’t know. Why would only a piece of it drop like that?”

Grant turned to track my arm. “Where?” he asked. “I don’t see anything.”

“Me neither,” Alloha said. “Where is it exactly?”

“Right there,” I said, pointing even more insistently. “It’s coming down the side of that tree. Something feels off about it. Is there some kind of monster that might make a weird cloud like that?”

“Great,” Jay complained as he returned his extra arrow to the quiver on his back, “now the new kid’s seeing things.”

I squinted at the red shape, trying to make out what it was. It seemed like it was glowing faintly, almost like the after image you got in your eyes after staring too long at something bright. I was only able to track it because it kept moving. The closer it got, the more certain I was that I was looking at something specific and deliberate. The only source I thought that made any sense was if it was somehow a pop-up from my overlay, as that was the only way I ever saw visual hallucinations since arriving in Earris. Just as that thought occurred to me, a pop-up appeared to address my confusion.

Would you like to start tracking partially invisible targets? [Yes] [No] [Cancel]

I clicked yes as fast as my finger could move. A bright white outline appeared in my vision around the spot of haze I’d been staring at, then I noticed more. That wasn’t the only one, just the first one I’d actually noticed. Dozens of individual outlines appeared in my vision around dozens of vague clumps of red haze descending from the ceiling of the spider nest.

“Ahh!” I shouted. I really meant to say something more intelligible, but in the heat of the moment all I could think was “bad thing” and “shoot with gun”. The outlines around the faint red hazes looked a lot like spiders. I brought up my AK-47 and aimed at the first one descending on the tree behind Torra and Victoria who were in the process of inspecting the dead bodies of the two spiders they’d killed.

Ra-ta-ta-ta-tat!

From so far away I think I fired ten shots before one or two of them hit. Then I got a definitive answer about what I was seeing. A spider the size of a horse lost its footing on the wall and tumbled to the ground. As soon as it fell, it became fully visible to everyone else. Torra stood there slack-jawed when he saw it—from his perspective—appear out of midair. Victoria was the first to act. She whipped out her rapier and jammed the wounded spider in the head, just like she had the smaller one she’d killed.

I turned my gun up the wall and started spraying bullets. There were so many targets, I basically couldn’t miss.

Ra-ta-ta-ta-tat!

More spiders started falling from the trees as I struck them. “Spiders!” Grant shouted uselessly. The others returned to combat readiness in a moment. Torra pulled his sword out and charged at a spider I’d clipped with my gun, hacking into it. These were much larger than the four that had lured us in. Twice to five times the size. Alloha tossed her spear at another of the ones I’d injured. Jay started fumbling at his quiver to pull out some arrows.

I emptied my first mag and let it drop to the ground, reaching into my pocket for the next one with choppy, unpracticed motions. More spiders were coming down from above on their own. They didn’t need me to expose them. Torra couldn’t see, but above him a white outline told me an obscured spider was about to drop on him while he hacked at another with his sword. “Torra! Above you, look out!” I shouted. I slapped in my mag and started to pull back the charge handle, but realized as I did that even with ammo I couldn’t safely shoot a spider that close to Torra. I was no marksman. Torra looked up at hearing my warning, then another spider appeared on a tree trunk right next to him and pounced on him. He brought his sword up to pierce it in the gut, but it sunk two massive fangs in his shoulder as he did. He went down howling.

Victoria was in the middle of stabbing her third spider when another of them tried to give her the same treatment they had Torra, only she was able to step back and give it a mouthful of steel instead. Her movements were as fast as they were precise, but more spiders kept descending from above and slowly surrounding us. I saw movement in every direction.

“We have to retreat!” Grant said. “Make for the exit!” He slashed at one of the spiders I’d injured with my gun, chopping off the front leg, then another, then cutting its face open.

“No!” Alloha answered fiercely. “We’re not leaving without Torra!” She recalled a spear dripping with green spider ichor, then tossed her spear again, this time expertly impaling the spider on top of Torra. She didn’t wait for permission from Grant and followed after her spear, racing across the clearing littered with random spider silk and harpy remains. Grant cursed and followed after her.

With another mag loaded in, I fired at all the spiders that popped up on my overlay. There were too many to count, so I just strafed the gun in a line across all the ones I could see. Every spider I struck was broken of its invisibility, even if it didn’t fall right away. There were so many more than we could handle. Grant was right. We had to leave. I looked back the way we’d come and saw still more spiders were dropping in from behind. I emptied the rest of my mag on those. Jay was still with me, letting arrows loose as fast as he could. He was focused on supporting Alloha and Victoria who were trying to clear the nearest threats around Torra. He didn’t even seem to realize more spiders were coming behind us. I punched the release on my mag and shoved Jay forward. “Get away from the walls,” I said. “More are coming.” I urged her further into the center of the clearing as I pulled out the next mag. I still had too much ammunition to even use it all. I wished I’d manifested a minigun, if that was even possible.

Victoria was still deadly focused on killing as many spiders as she could as fast as she could, but it seemed the efforts of the rest of the party had turned to rescuing Torra. “Vince! Get over here!” Grant shouted at me. “We need healing.” He and Alloha were pulling Torra out from beneath the spider that had bitten him. His body was stiff as a board. I couldn’t tell if it was the rigor mortis of death or something to do with the spider venom, but he looked beyond help. Blood was oozing from two quarter-sized puncture wounds in his shoulder. Another spider came crawling over its dead brethren that still had Alloha’s spear protruding from it. As it left the wall of webbing between two trees, it became visible on its own. Grant charged it, slashing wildly. It tried to block him with its legs, but they just got hacked off in the process.

I heard a gurgle behind me and turned to see a spider on top of Jay. It was a big one, its head higher off the ground than Jay’s. While I’d been looking away it had plucked him off the ground and as I watched it plunged its fangs into his chest. That leather armor he wore did absolutely nothing to block fangs that massive. I pulled back the charge handle on the next mag and blasted the spider point blank, for all the good it would do Jay. Chunks of green viscera went flying, then I turned the gun on the next approaching spider, then the next, then the next. I spent the whole clip just stopping more of them from approaching from behind.

“Jay’s down!” I shouted to the others. I turned back to see Victoria still holding off the approach of more spiders from Torra’s left while Alloha tried dragging Torra by the arm across the ground. I wasn’t sure where she was trying to take him, since it wasn’t exactly safe near me, but she was determined to get him out. She waved her hand and sent her spear through the head of one spider, then another while Grant hacked into another coming at our diminishing circle from the right. One of his daggers got lodged in the chitin of the spider he was attacking and he was forced to jump back as it swung a leg at him. He looked back at Jay, then Torra, chest panting.

I thought of my Skill. It wouldn’t exactly be easy, but if I got a hold on one of these horse-sized spiders and drained them, I thought I’d probably get a massive boost of MP. Maybe enough for another manifest would do it. I could try to summon a minigun. Or a belt fed 50-Cal turret. The risk of being ousted as a black magic user was feeling inconsequential at the moment. I saw a flash of light to the left as Victoria seemed to be coming to a similar decision about risk tolerance. She held out her buckler hand and launched a flurry of tiny, buzzing fireballs that swirled through the air and peppered the face of another approaching spider. It pulled back, even if the small flames didn’t actually kill it.

“This is cursed,” Grant said. “We’re not getting out of here alive.” He frowned at Alloha.

“No!” Alloha shouted at him. “Don’t do it. We can still get out.” I wasn’t sure what she thought he was about to do. He hadn’t said anything.

“I’ll go for help,” Grant said. “I’ll be back.” He kicked off the ground and launched into the air. He was… abandoning us! The bastard! I watched him accelerate for maybe twenty feet up before his momentum was abruptly arrested. His arms and legs flailed in webbing that hadn’t been visible until he hit it. “Help!” he shouted. I could just make out thin lines of red in a web around him. Even the webs were invisible.

I didn’t have time for Grant’s self-inflicted emergency and turned my gun on still more spiders crawling towards us from all around. Victoria was holding her own, but with Grant no longer covering our right flank that left a lot of area for me to cover. I tried pulsing the AK instead of holding down the trigger. I wasn’t even waiting to see if I killed any spiders, just peppering them each with a few bullets, then moving on to the next target. It was more about keeping them back then getting kills. Alloha finally dropped Torra and stood over his body protectively. She summoned her spear, then tossed it again. Pulled it back, tossed it again. Each toss hit with as much accuracy as Victoria’s sword thrusts, but went much deeper.

My mag went dry and I reached for the same pocket but found it empty so had to yank a mag out of my belt instead. As I reloaded I looked up at Grant. He’d gone quiet and though I couldn’t actually see the spider that had bitten him and was now in the process of wrapping him in a cocoon, it was obvious that’s what was happening. My overlay showed a massive white outline behind his body. I decided he wasn’t worth trying to save until the rest of us were safe. I spent my ammo blasting two spiders crawling down the trunk of a nearby tree to try to land on Alloha, then turned back to strafe a line of spiders trying to sneak up behind us. The three of us were back-to-back-to-back trying to keep the enemies at bay. There were a lot less white outlines on my overlay, and a lot more twitching spiders, but I still couldn’t even guess at how many there actually were. My ears were ringing from the bullet fire. I made a note to make some earplugs next time.

“You know it would have been nice if someone warned me your world’s spiders could turn invisible!” I complained while I dropped another mag.

“They can’t,” Victoria said, panting heavily with exertion. “Must be a Skill.” She lunged at another spider. It swiped at her and clocked her with a solid swipe while her sword jammed into its face. She fell to the white floor of the clearing, though her armor seemed to hold up to the abuse. Her sword thrust hadn’t quite finished off the spider she’d been aiming to kill but three bullets from my AK finished it off. I then had to quickly cover Alloha again as another spider tried to drop on her that she couldn’t see, before turning back to my third of the triangle. I realized then that I’d gotten lucky as the closest spider had been wasting time wrapping Jay in a cocoon. It might have been able to reach me when I’d been looking away. It was just too impossible to look in every direction at once, and the others were depending on me to spot the spiders they couldn’t see. I sprayed some more. My fingers were getting stiff from all the vibrations. The front line of approaching spiders were injured from past bullet wounds. I gave them a few more. Several of them dropped. As soon as the gun stopped firing, I dropped another mag.

“How many spiders do you see?” Victoria asked. I saw her open her hand and throw out another cluster of mini fireballs. One of them landed on some webbing and a spider immediately rushed to smother the flame.

This time I didn’t wait to get prompted by my overlay. I just asked it to count the spiders for me and it spit out a tally in the corner of my vision with a little spider icon next to it. “Fifty-six!” I reported to Victoria. I slapped another mag in and checked on Alloha while I was sliding back the lever to chamber a round. Three spiders were on top of her. The first lunged at her and she sent her spear through its head. She had to step back as the next one crawled closer, but as it reached for her she made a fist and her spear dislodged itself from the first spider’s head and slammed into it. All she had to fight with when her spear was occupied was a little dagger and she jammed it in that spider’s forehead now as it scrabbled at the spear poking a hole in its torso. I looked for a gap where I could maybe fire off a shot or two, but they were too close to her. The last spider was massive. The biggest I’d seen yet, but instead of moving in for the kill, it satisfied itself grabbing Torra’s frozen body while she stepped back. That sent Alloha into a homicidal rage.

“No!” she screeched. “Not him!” She didn’t have her spear but she dived on the spider anyway. To her credit, it released Torra. But then it just grabbed her instead. With no armor to protect her, it bit right into her and I saw blood spray from the injury site. The only upside to Alloha being in the monster’s mandibles was I finally saw an opening to blast it with my AK and did so. I made sure to aim at the thing’s thorax, well away from where it was grabbing her. The shots rang out, but while most hit, not all even pierced the larger spider’s armor. It took dumping a full clip before green ichor started to gush out of the spider and it let go of her, but by then it had impaled her with two fist-sized holes in her back. As she was released, she flopped to the ground, eyes vacant, body as rigid and unmoving as Torra’s.

I wasn’t even looking behind me at the spiders I was sure were approaching. I let them and rushed over to Alloha’s aid. I had no idea how deadly the spider venom was, but even if it was only a paralytic, I knew she’d bleed out from those massive puncture wounds. I activated Static Bolt as I ran. I’d never used it before, but it was supposed to automatically go off at the first approaching enemy, so maybe it would buy me the time I needed to heal.

MP: 41/96 >>> MP: 35/96

As soon as the Brand was activated, I heard it go off behind me with a loud crack of electricity. Apparently a spider had been about to take me from behind, so that had been a good call. I slid to a stop where Alloha had dropped. She was on her back so I had to flip her over to get to the puncture wounds. I slapped my hands against the two holes in her back and activated my Healing Touch Brand for the first time. My palms barely covered the punctures.

MP: 35/96 >>> MP: 28/96

My hands pulsed with a golden light for a moment. When I pulled them away to check the damage I saw the wounds had already become scabs on the surface of her skin. Remarkable. Alloha took a shuddering gasp of breath. “Spider!” Alloha said. Her eyes went wide and I followed her gaze to see one of the smaller spiders dropping down on us from the nearby tree. It almost made it, but then a wooden spear flew from the side and intercepted it.

“Thanks!” I said as I trained my gun on another spider and pulled the trigger. The gun just clicked, reminding me I’d forgotten to reload. I fished a mag from my belt as I dropped the empty one to the ground.

“How m-many left?” Alloha sputtered out. She held out her hand and her spear returned to it, then she used it to get back on her feet. Her legs were shaking.

I checked the tally on my overlay as I slapped the next mag home. “Fifty-two,” I answered. Damn. Still so many. It almost seemed like someone had intelligently… that was it! We were in a trap! With gallons of adrenaline rushing through my veins I had a clarity of thought I’d failed to crystalize earlier. These spiders were all obscured in some kind of semi-invisible haze. Victoria had told me that meant a Skill was involved. What was a prerequisite of having a Skill? Intelligence! The kind of intelligence that could have a monster setting a trap that involved luring in adventurers with a small number of baby spiders. Letting them fully enter your web before descending on all sides. I hoped we were putting up more of a fight than expected, but unless something changed, we weren’t getting out of this alive. We’d come here hunting spiders, not realizing they were hunting us.

Victoria was splattered with ichor and heaving out breaths, but she was still standing without help from me or Alloha, which was impressive enough already. Every time a spider got close she somehow summoned the reserves of energy to carry out a perfect thrust, then jumped back before the answering claws could catch her. I wasn’t sure how long she could keep it up, nor was I sure if I even had enough ammo left for fifty damn spiders. I’d left a good two dozen magazines back at the camp just because I had no convenient way to carry them. I was already down to half of what I’d brought with me and the barrel of the gun was turning red with heat. It was an open question whether I’d run out of ammo before or after the gun just overheated and jammed up. I tried to be more conservative with my shots.

Three shots in a spider about to reach for Victoria while she was facing another. Two short bursts on a cluster of spiders coming down the wall of webbing from above, then back to empty the rest of my magazine on a trio of much larger spiders crossing the area I’d been guarding until I rushed to Alloha’s aid. One of them already had a scorch mark from my Static Bolt on it. I tacked on a few more bullets for good measure.

Alloha’s spear was dancing through chitinous bodies, but the spiders were getting closer and we were only getting slower at killing them. I was forced to reload again and while I was doing that two of the smaller variety fell on us from above. One on me, one on Alloha. I howled like an idiot and tried to push it away from my face while Alloha started jabbing the one on her with a dagger. I bludgeoned the spider on me with the butt stock of my gun before realizing that probably nobody would notice right now if I used my Skill. I grabbed the spider scrabbling on top of me and started sucking its lifeforce out. First it went still, then its legs shriveled together. I pushed it off, stopping short of actually dusting it, as that might be harder to go unnoticed. As I swept it aside I saw that the one on top of Alloha had sunk its fangs in her leg while she stabbed at it repeatedly. Her movements were getting slower, so I reached over and grabbed the spider on her, giving it a partial drain as well. Between the two, I noticed a significant boost to my MP.

MP: 28/96 >>> MP: 64/96

Not nearly as much as I’d gotten from my rissian victims a few days ago, but a welcome addition to my diminishing MP bar. Alloha was breathing shallowly when I shoved the spider off her so I placed my hand on her thigh and healed her again.

MP: 64/96 >>> MP: 57/96

“Don’t feel… good,” Alloha said through gritted teeth. She didn’t try to get up and I didn’t try to force her.

“Just hang in there,” I told her. “We’ll get you out of here.” I looked up at Victoria and saw she was still on her feet, though sweat was dripping down her face now, causing that ridiculous amount of eyeliner she insisted on wearing to run down her cheeks. She was looking at me and I did a quick mental inventory to try to remember if I’d been too overt about my use of Consume Vitality. No, I decided, I hadn’t. Even if she’d been watching it shouldn’t have been obvious I’d drained those spiders to get them to stop biting us. “I think Alloha’s down for the count,” I reported.

“They are avoiding you,” Victoria said.

“What?”

“That spider. It could have bit you and it chose not to.”

“So?” I asked. Now wasn’t the time for a blame game and I wasn’t even sure what she was trying to imply. Did she think I was in bed with the spiders or something? I opened up with the AK-47 on a spider that was coming up beside Victoria, then I had to turn and pepper a few more with bullets. Killing was off the table. It took too many bullets to kill and we were surrounded. I spun in a slow circle popping one or two shots in the closest spiders. They were getting cautious about approaching me. Was that the gun, or was Victoria really onto something?

Even though Alloha was on the ground breathing shallowly it seemed her ability to control her spear hadn’t diminished. She snaked it around in a circle, stabbing into a spider that had been about to move on me, and ripping free in a spray of green ichor.

“How many. Left?” Alloha asked. I could barely hear her over the ringing of my ears from all the gun fire. She sounded hoarse.

I looked around at the dead spiders littered on the ground and my overlay updated the number. “Forty-five!” The ones I could see on my periphery were much bigger than the ones on the ground. They were as big as bears. Some larger still. “These last ones… are getting pretty big,” I warned Victoria. I could see at least three in sight that were as big as the one that I’d emptied a full mag into. I wasn’t going to have the ammo to take out that many spiders and the size difference between them and Victoria was getting to the point I didn’t think she’s be able to kill them in a single thrust of her scimitar, no matter how accurate she was.

“Why did they have to be invisible,” Victoria cursed. “I can’t—” She cut herself off as a little one leapt at her and she was forced to take a step back and skewer it midair.

One of those bear-sized spiders decided to creep forward and I gave it the last five rounds in my current mag trying to turn it away. It barely seemed bothered. I fumbled for another mag from my belt but Alloha intervened to push it back. Her spear lashed out. It stabbed right in the larger spider’s face. This time the spear failed to push all the way through. The spider grabbed the haft of the spear and snapped it like a toothpick. While I slid back the lever to chamber the first round in my next mag Victoria slowed it down by showering it with hot embers. They bounced off the spider’s chitin, but it gave me the time I needed to bring my gun up and dump a full mag from close range. The barrel of the AK was bright red by the time I was done and not looking good.

I was standing over Alloha while I faced down this massive challenger, but somehow there were still more coming in from behind us while that was happening. I found that out when Alloha gasped and I looked back to see she’d been snatched up by another monstrous spider from behind. It wasn’t even trying to bite her, just grabbing her legs with the sharp spikes that made up its limbs. I was out of ammo and the gun was about to quit working anyway, so I charged at it. It opened mandibles thick as my arms to snap at me and I just shoved the smoking red barrel of my AK into its mouth then grabbed the nearest limb and started draining while steam rushed from its burning face.

MP: 57/96 >>> MP: 123/96

The big spider took a ton more vitality before it dropped Alloha and curled into a ball. I hoped the confusion of using a red-hot gun barrel would explain that away to Victoria if she was watching too closely. I pulled Alloha back from the spider. She was fully unconscious now and had a massive bleeding gash across her torso where the spider’s leg had clamped over her. I had MP to burn, so while I crouched over Alloha to heal her again I activated Static Bolt three times and was rewarded with three loud cracks as spiders tried to step too close.

MP: 123/96 >>> MP: 98/96

The gash on her torso only partially closed but I wasn’t a clinic. That would have to do for now, as long as she wasn’t actively dying. This time she didn’t even wake up after my healing, which I thought was probably a mercy considering all the abuse she’d been suffering. I wasn’t sure if she was better or worse off than those in our party like Torra, Grant, and Jay, that had been wrapped in cocoons by now.

“Leave her,” Victoria said. “We need to cut our way out. Only chance.”

A few days ago I probably would have jumped at that chance, but I’d gotten to know Alloha pretty well during the long journey getting out here and I didn’t want her to die. Her dream was to work for the guild taking low-paying contracts that would help the common folk. What the hell was I ever going to do that would be as good as that?

“We can’t just leave everyone,” I objected.

“We can come back later. With a real plan.” She sounded like Grant. Everyone knew he was never going to “come back” with “help” when he’d tried to fly off. There was nobody around for miles! Victoria grimaced and blasted out another spray of hot embers to keep back two spiders looking to move in on us while we talked. A few of the embers caught fire on the webbing that filled the nest, causing a flurry of activity as spiders rushed to put the fire out. “Dying with them isn’t going to save anyone,” Victoria argued. She pointed to the nearest section of webbing on the edge of the circle. “Use your loud thing that way. Clear a path.”

“No.” I said. I pulled the AK-47 from around my shoulders and tossed it at the nearest spider.

“What are you doing!” Victoria shouted. “Idiot!”

“I’m not going to clear a path,” I said. “I’m going to kill them all.” I closed my eyes and activated Manifest Inspiration again. It was time to get more creative. I’d wasted too much of my weight capacity before on ammo I couldn’t effectively carry with me and reloading was getting to be a pain. I’d played enough war games to have an idea of some better options. I pictured an old classic medium machine gun: the M60. This time I imagined it pre-loaded with an ammo belt of armor-piercing rounds that stretched to the ground in a heavy stack. As a sweetener, I even included ear plugs this time. I felt the weight of it settle in my hands and opened my eyes to see the much longer muzzle extending out before me.

MP: 98/96 >>> MP: 43/96

Just like I’d imagined, a belt of ammo was already loaded in and ready to go. There were so many spiders, I couldn’t possibly miss. I punched the trigger and held it down, grabbing the handle further up the barrel to brace it.

Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta!

It hammered away, crushing into my shoulder as I tried to brace it. The spiders before me were cut to pieces and I slowly turned. The kickback was way more than I was ready for and it kept popping up over my head, but with such a massive supply of ammo I could afford to keep holding down the trigger as I adjusted. Instead of just sitting around to get annihilated, this time the spiders actually began to flee, returning to climb up the walls of their nest, or trying to run away from me as I turned with my machine gun to blow their bodies to pieces. Those that made it back up the trees joined the bulk of the red haze at the top where my overlay could no long distinguish individual spiders with an outline.

“Damn,” I cursed. “They’re fast learners.” I looked down at the belt of ammo I had left. It was dangling off the side of the gun, but was no longer quite touching the ground.

“They must have a matriarch,” Victoria said. “They would never be this smart without one. She’s the one with the Skill. Can you see her? She’ll be the biggest one.”

I looked up in the branches above. Somewhere up there Grant was still wrapped in a cocoon, possibly being fed on. “No,” I answered. “It’s all a big haze up there. I can’t make out any individual spiders. What happens if I kill this matriarch.”

“I don’t know,” Victoria answered honestly. “I’ve never heard of anyone facing one outside the White Forest.”

The route to leave was clear now, but this could be the chance to finish this. “If she’s big… I shouldn’t really be able to miss, should I?” I asked hypothetically. I didn’t actually wait for a response from Victoria. I just pointed my machine gun to the center of the mass of red haze and unleashed. I knew I had the right spot a few seconds later when the red haze completely vanished, revealing a spider the size of a minivan crouched in a thick web. She tried to move out of the way, but I tracked her with the machine gun. I was a terrible shot, but even a child could track a target that massive. She was covered in thick black carapace, but it didn’t do her much good against my armor-piercing rounds. She was quickly covered in specks of green as the bullets punched holes through exoskeleton to reveal the ichor inside. She clicked her mandibles in pain, then tumbled out of the webbing and crashed to the ground right about the time the belt on the M60 ran dry.

“Is she dead?” I asked. I dropped the gun. It was useless to me now without enough MP to summon more ammo.

“If she’s not, she will be soon,” Victoria said. She pointed up in the canopy. There were more spiders than I’d seen attack us crawling around on top of each other in a horrifying mess. Hundreds. Several of them some of those larger variety, even if none came close to being as large as their matriarch had been.

“So… are the rest going to run away—Shoot!” Something triggered in the crowd above and it was like a dam broke. Spiders started racing down the side of the nest in droves. We didn’t have time to even run for the exit with how many there were. I considered possibly summoning another weapon, but I couldn’t think of anything that could attack hundreds of spiders as big or bigger than I was before they could reach us. A flamethrower? Maybe, but I didn’t have enough MP. There was a dead spider corpse close by. If I dusted it, I might get enough.

“I can finally see them,” Victoria said as calmly as could be. Considering our situation I thought she should have sounded a little more fearful.

I jumped on the spider corpse riddled with bullet holes. I was past the point of caring if Victoria saw me dusting a dead body. We were going to die if I didn’t do anything. I shriveled the corpse to a husk, then finally black dust.

MP: 43/96 >>> MP: 78/96

“Alright, I’m going to make another weapon. This one will get messy,” I explained. We only had seconds. The spiders were nearly on us. They were already crawling over Alloha’s unconscious form. Could I really bring myself to napalm this entire forest to save myself? Would I even be able to get out without choking on the smoke? And wouldn’t the others burn to death too, trapped or unconscious as they were?

“No,” Victoria insisted. “I can do this. If you want to live, put your face on the ground and close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Do it!” she snapped. She didn’t give me a choice the second time. She rushed over, slapped a hand on the back of my head and shoved it into the disgusting mix of spider webs, dirt, and green ichor that made up the floor of the nest. I don’t know what she did or how, but I felt an intense heat all around me. Spiders started screeching. I tried to look up, but Victoria’s rough hand on the back of my head was like a steel rod. I could see the yellow light of flames through the cracks in the dirt. Finally, her hand loosened and I picked my head up to look around.

We were surrounded by the corpses of spiders. All of them. Dead. Unmoving. Where their heads were supposed to be were only black charcoal and smoldering ash. Victoria collapsed to her knees, panting hard. The sclera around her eyes had turned blood red and the skin around her eyes was blistered. She closed her eyes with a wince. “Was that… all… of them?” she panted out.

“Yeah. They’re all dead. What the hell did you do?” I knew the answer, of course, even if I didn’t know the specifics. Black magic. Some of the most powerful black magic I could even imagine. What good was my touch-based black magic compared to burning the head off of hundreds of enemies in a few seconds?

“Nothing,” Victoria insisted through eyes clenched tight. She was crying tears of blood, though she didn’t let on that it bothered her. “I didn’t do anything. Just like you didn’t do anything… when you turned that spider to dust.”