NOVEL NEXT V1.20 Big Bad Spider
All my life, I’ve never had a problem with bugs, spiders, or most vermin. But now I’m trapped by the largest talking spider ever. Something about it setting up a trap for us hinted at its intelligence. The talking confirmed it. Then a stream of white silk covered the entrance—our escape. I’m going to die. We are going to die.
“Run!” Bark threw me behind him. “It’s a deviant.”
On pure instinct, I stayed on my feet. I couldn’t turn to face the monstrosity behind me, so I just ran. There was no thought as to where I was going. I just ran.
I kept running, but all I saw were web-covered stone walls. Where’s the exit? There’s an exit, right? Bark said there was an exit, didn’t he? On one of the walls, a portion of the webs was thicker. The tiniest sliver of metal could be seen through the silky barrier. A narrow track also looked like it went under the door too.
The door was easily two hundred yards away from me. So I sprinted as fast as I could. I heard Bark and Killa shouting, but I didn’t register what they said. I had to get out.
I was halfway to the door when something pulled on my foot. I kept my balance and turned to see a blob of web covering my left leg. The mammoth-sized spider crawled down from the ceiling. It could reach the floor from the ceiling as it opened its maw towards me.
I unsheathed my knife and slashed at the webbing. The blade bit into the sticky strands, but my progress was agonizingly slow. Then the sound of steel scraping against steel caused the spider to recoil from me and turn towards Bark. Instead of four swords, he held two larger swords, with two hands on each one. Each sword was twice the size they had been before, and there was no sign of his other two swords.
He swung the swords at the spider’s leg, and they collided in a shower of sparks. The spider’s leg shifted, but I didn’t see any blood. It kicked him with another leg, sending him sprawling to the ground with a grunt. Killa threw a pair of blue tentacles at its center body, but it hit a leg. That almost seemed to stagger the monster. It regained its balance and slammed a leg into the ground where Killa had jumped back. The area exploded in a shower of rocky debris.
Some of the rocks looked like they hit Killa, but they bounced off her amorphous body. I finally cut myself out of the web, but my dagger was stuck. It’s not that important anyway. I scrambled to my feet and headed for the door. Shoot, no. I need my dagger to cut through the webs blocking the door. But it’s going to take me forever to cut through them. What about Killa and Bark? Will they be able to fight that thing off until I create an escape route?
Bark was sent flying again as the spider dropped its leg in front of him. His swords hit the ground where he was while he went flying back as rocks pummeled his body. Killa sent out another blast of tentacles, this time hitting its face. It turned from Bark and charged the slime woman.
No. I have to help them. They need me. My hands shook as I stopped and pointed my gun at the absurdly large monster. The shot sailed through the air and bounced off its chitinous shell. You’ve got to be kidding me. I looked down at the gun. This thing isn’t strong enough. What do I do now?
“Go for the eyes, Rina. Go for the eyes!” Killa shouted as she dove away from the creature’s massive fangs.
With nothing to lose, I aimed and shot. While I was aiming for one of the larger central eyes, it moved, and I hit one of the smaller eyes on the side. The creature let out a screech of pain, its legs twitching as it covered its face.
“Paaaaain!” the creature hissed at me as it charged, fangs bared.
I’ve pissed it off now. The creature’s fangs were as long as I was tall, and I wasn’t interested in being impaled by one. I turned and ran, but I could hear the creature’s legs clicking against the stone behind me, and it was catching up with me.
I need to be faster!
I realized I had unspent points I received from the previous room. I dumped all sixty points into my quickness, hoping that it would let me run faster than this crazy creature.
Name:
Rina Lone
Level:
15
Augments:
Agility:
170
Cellular Regeneration
Arcane:
105
Synthetic eyes: lvl 1
Power:
50
HUD
Quickness:
255
Resilience:
100
Toughness:
100
Unassigned Points:
0
Shards:
14555
I felt the effects immediately. The spider was still gaining on me with its multiple sets of legs and long stride, but I ran faster than I ever thought possible. Before I was running pretty fast, but now, I’m the fastest human ever.
Bark had chased after the spider. It was almost comical how slow he was compared to us. But I might not have a better opening since the spider is chasing me. With a deep breath, time seemed to slow down for me. I jumped, turned, and pulled the trigger. The bullet struck the spider’s largest center eye, creating a burst of blood. But it wasn’t enough to stop the creature’s momentum. So I fired again and hit the creature in another eye. This time, it stopped and covered its face. Its screech almost seemed to echo throughout the room.
“Kill…” Blood poured from its black, soulless eyes. “Kill. Kill, kill killkill killkillkill.”
Not only was it talking more, it was talking faster, and it sounded livid.
Bark leaped onto the spider’s abdomen. I don’t know how, but he kept his balance as he ran across its back. He clung to the spider’s back as the spider thrashed in a fury. Its legs, body, and everything else jerked as it attempted to dislodge the shaylip.
Bark’s swords clashed against the spider’s exoskeleton, each impact sending sparks flying. Killa’s magic struck the side of the creature again. Maybe if I can blind it, we stand a chance. I fired another three rounds at the creature. Only one hit an eye while the creature bucked around wildly. The spider reeled from the impact of the bullet, its legs scrambling to regain its balance.
Bark used the creature’s momentary lapse to drive his swords in between the place its legs were connected to the body. There was the slight grinding of steel, but then I saw the blood pouring from the leg. Bark let out a cry as he twisted the blade and, with a loud crack, the leg separated from the spider.
The creature hit the ground, and I felt the ground shake. Bark toppled off it as Killa threw her arms out and wrapped the monster’s face in yellow tentacles. I took the opportunity to shoot my last two bullets at its eyes. After the first bullet popped another eye, it flinched backwards, causing my second shot to bounce off its shell.
It pulled itself from Killa’s tentacles as it stood up, then unleashed a wail so loud and high-pitched I dropped to my knees and covered my ears. Bark rolled on the ground, covering his ears too. Killa looked like she was in pain too. Her body was rapidly losing its definition.
Mercifully, the spider stopped its otherworldly wailing. I caught myself before I hit the ground as I let go of my ears. It stopped so it could lift its front legs up and extend its abdomen towards Killa. A shimmering white stream shot from the spider and coated her. It looked like she was trying to slip through the webbing, but the spider kept pouring more on until there was a mound of webs where she stood moments before. Only her white tentacle escaped, but it flopped to the ground.
It then turned and continued to spray towards me. I scooped my gun up and ran away from the spray. Panicked, I just ran away without thinking until I realized that I was headed straight for a wall. Now I’ve got to do something.
The stream of webs got closer. Maybe I can buy more time for myself. I stopped and reversed direction. As I ran, I jumped, trying to get as high as I could. For a moment, I thought I could clear it. The ray followed me up, and I knew it was over for me. My leg was hit first, and it felt like I was pulled along by it as I hit the ground in a painful heap.
More webs covered me for a couple of seconds. My lower half was trapped with one of my arms. At least my gun is free. The spider lowered itself back down and stared right at me. It’s not going to do me any good. It walked right for me, but from the side, Bark leaped and drove a sword where he severed one of its legs.
It staggered for a moment before using the leg opposite of Bark to jab into his stomach. My companion lifted off the ground and hovered in the air for a moment before another leg slapped him out of the air and into a wall. The crunch that sounded left me wincing and shivering at the same time. Then the spider resumed its march towards me.
I raised my gun and pointed at one of the remaining eyes. The spider raised one of its shorter front limbs to shield its eyes from me. Is this thing actually learning? How smart is this thing? Maybe it’ll let its guard down when it gets close, and I can unload everything into its face. Yeah, that has to work.
Even though I had a plan, I still struggled to work myself free from the web. The creature’s fangs still reached for me. As it got closer to me, it kept its eyes protected, so I tried to shoot past it, but it seemed to follow my aim. Desperate, I snapped my aim around randomly and fired as quickly as possible. All I succeeded in hitting was the walls and ceiling. Once it was close enough, it could reach me with one of its legs. It lifted it up and slammed it into my chest. Its foot, if spiders have feet, covered my torso, face, arms, and part of my legs as it slammed me into the ground.
Everything flashed white as I felt my head bounce off the stone floor. My chest felt heavy, and the arm holding my gun bent at a new spot it had never had before. Even though I was dizzy, I knew what came next. And I wasn’t disappointed, as pain wracked my body in three places. The spider wasn’t finished with me, though. It extended one of its fangs and pierced my stomach. I could feel something pushing against my insides as it undoubtedly injected me with venom.
As I could feel more venom being pushed into me, a blue tentacle lashed out and slapped the side of the fang. It bent at an odd new angle while slicing open my belly. The spider hissed as it retreated from me, milky white fluid dripping from its fang as it hung limply.
“You’ll not have her.” Killa’s voice bubbled through her featureless face.
Her features refined themselves again, but her clothes were probably still stuck in the webbing she somehow squeezed herself out of. She threw another two tentacles at the creature, causing it to retreat yet again.
I had thought I was in pain before. I was wrong. That was a light tickle compared to the agony that consumed me. My body burned, yet I felt colder than I’d ever felt before. Statuses started displaying on my HUD.
Liver, stomach, spleen, pancreas, small intestine, large intestine, gallbladder, kidneys, bladder, uterus, ovaries, rectum, fallopian tubes, appendix, spine, and cervix; all listed as heavily damaged or missing. I couldn’t begin to understand what that meant for me, as I spent every ounce of control screaming. My body quickly stopped moving, and I lay, sprawled out, on the stone as I could feel my insides liquifying.
My eyes drifted closed as I stopped breathing.
Expelling venom…
Venom expelled. Repairing tissue damage. Beginning with missing organs…
Beginning reconnecting nervous system…
Finalizing reconstruction…
Reconstruction complete...
Restarting heart...
I let out a gasp as I sat up. The messages from my system were displayed in front of me. Did I die? No, I’m still here. All the notifications on my HUD of all my missing or damaged organs were gone as well.
The world around me slowly came into focus. The pain that had consumed my world faded into a dull ache as I could feel the nanites buzzing around my body still. My arm was even back to normal again. My vision cleared just as I witnessed Killa lash out at the spider with more tentacles. The spider twitched its legs and its mandibles as it retreated from her manic assault.
My heart skipped a beat as I watched. Killa leaped onto the spider’s head, her form partially melting over its surface. What is she doing? The spider thrashed and bucked, attempting to dislodge Killa from its face. I could see Killa’s body stretching and clinging to the spider’s body.
“How do you like someone dissolving you?” She’s lost it. “It’s not so fun when someone does it to you, is it?”
The spider’s thrashing intensified. It started slamming her into walls. Chunks of stone fell from the collisions. I’ve got to do something. There’s no way I’m going to hit anything with them moving around like that. I saw Bark’s sword lying on the ground. Maybe I could use that.
After running over to it, I picked it up. It was lighter than I was expecting, but it was still hard to carry since it was taller than me. I took a quick peek at my energy level, which was a quarter bar past one full one, before we started fighting, which was now barely a visible blip.
I better make this count.
As the spider thrashed and reeled, its attention focused on Killa’s persistent attacks, and her body started stretching further from the creature’s body with each attempt. How much longer can she hold on?
Time slowed down as I surged forward, the sword held out in front of me as a replacement spear. My fingers tightened around the hilt of the sword. My knuckles turned white as I ran towards the struggling mass of spider and slime, my heart pounding.
The ground shook as the spider’s movements became increasingly violent. Each time its legs struck the ground, I felt it. It was jumping and slamming its head into the ceiling. Whatever she’s doing, it’s doing something. Parts of the ceiling started raining down around me and the spider. But if this keeps up, we’re all going to be buried alive.
Killa laughed maniacally as she rode on. But I could see that parts of her were falling off the monster. It rocked back and flung its enormous head towards me. Killa’s grip finally relented as her mass of green goo flew through the air. I aimed the sword at its eyes, but I realized I was too close. Its maw opened wide as it headed straight for me. With a shriek, I closed my eyes, turned my head, and raised the sword. Everything went dark as some liquid coated me, and I could feel its sleek exoskeleton pin me to the ground.
My shard count showed I earned thirty-six thousand seven hundred and eighty-one from it. Also, twenty stat points.
There was a tiny hiss as putrid air fluttered around me. Please tell me that didn’t just happen. Please tell me I’m not where I think I am. I cracked one eye open, and I could see down its throat. There were no words to describe the horror. Nobody, under any circumstance, should ever see down there.
I started hyperventilating as I squeezed past its fangs. Gross, gross, gross. I want to go home. I’m not doing this anymore. A squeal escaped my lips as I shuddered and tried to wipe myself down frantically. Somehow, my actions were supposed to erase the memory of what I just saw. I wish my eyes weren’t good enough to see down its throat.
Killa limped towards me, her body less than half as tall as she had been and barely holding herself up. A small trail followed her as she came towards me. “Rina, it’s alright. It’s dead. It can’t hurt you.”
I stopped and stomped my feet. “No. I want to leave. I want out of this dungeon. And I never want to see another spider for the rest of my life.” Tears streamed down my face. “Please, we have to leave. You’re hurt.”
Killa’s laugh sounded like her lungs were full of liquid, despite her not having any lungs. “I’ll be fine.” She fell forward into a round blob. “I just need rest and food.”
I couldn't help but feel guilty for throwing a tantrum. I kneeled next to her. “You saved my life. And you watched us last time. It’s my turn to protect you.”
I turned and saw Bark was still not moving. Let’s get him patched up again, and I’ll need to eat before too long. But we don’t have enough food for me, and Killa can’t spare anything for me. I looked around the room and saw the only source of food that might be enough for me. I didn’t have the luxury of time to hope to find a better option. More tears soaked my cheeks. How come I have to eat a giant talking spider that almost killed me and my friends? Why me?
My stomach growled as I pulled up my status and distributed my stats.
Name:
Rina Lone
Level:
16
Augments:
Agility:
175
Cellular Regeneration
Arcane:
105
Synthetic eyes: lvl 1
Power:
50
HUD
Quickness:
255
Resilience:
105
Toughness:
110
Unassigned Points:
0
Shards:
51336