Chapter 158: Blood-Trade

Chapter 158: Blood-Trade

Alda glared at the darkness.

From twelve to eleven to ten to nine to seven to six to three. The party she'd already had, now five floors deeper, caught in the middle of a storm with thunder rumbling all around; and now without the numbers she'd allowed herself to grow comfortable with. Fucking figured. That was why she never lowered her guard. If you did that, you got adventurers who took nibbles of their own bloody party and cannibalistic children disappearing like they'd never been.

But survivors didn't bitch at the hand they were slapped with. They just slapped back.

Her heart was still slamming against her ribcage, boots scuffed to the stone—the clouds had swept back to cover Azkhal's fall, the thunder all around covering up the crash of their hit, but she had Lanc and Ossega. And a vague, nonsensical understanding of the dynamics firmly stomped underfoot, thanks to Shoth and Gnat.

You got what you wanted by biting. Shoth had taken that literally; she'd settle for figurative. But she would not be leaving this dungeon without the core.

She adjusted her vials again—setting those specifically made to counteract Azkhal, Pau, and Hulimat to less-accessible locations. She wasn't an idiot, no matter how much she enjoyed playing one with biting words and agreeable smiles. Long before she'd slipped a brew into Shoth's drink and tricked Azkhal into believing they had the same goal, she'd prepared if they turned against her.

But she'd thought Shoth had just been a tooth-based caster. And she'd thought Gnat would honour their deal.

Calarata wasn't Athábakhanú. Damningly, she forgot that, sometimes.

Still a vial to counter Lanc, a flare of brilliant light that stuck like oil to anything it touched; and one for Ossega, a heavy, globulous liquid that would seep through his hardened skin and get him drunk enough he couldn't stand, much less fight her. Alda knew how to brew things people wouldn't think of.

And now she stared at the fifth floor and all the illusions that swamped them like mud. Fucking hells.

"Water up," Alda barked, eyes fixed on the surroundings. "I'll give you somethin', but it'll settle like a shaft collapse unless you've got something in your gob."

Ossega, the hammer that he was, immediately tugged a waterskin off his waist and downed half of it—he'd tasted her brews before, from those for good nights and those for bad nights, and he knew what to expect. Lanc was a touch more hesitant, being newer to join her party, but he fumbled at his sides for something to whet his appetite before she punched a hole through it.

The vial was one tucked on her back; she popped it off, held her breath, and cracked the cork. Yeast like a thunderclap hit the air, fetid and over-fermented; tough as he was, she was tickled pink watching Ossega force past hurling as he downed a mouthful. Lanc barely avoided spitting his out by the skin of his teeth.

For her part, though she'd prepared herself, you really couldn't ready your mouth for twice-batched ginger root and autumn berries. One half numbed the mouth, the other inflamed it, and everything shot straight to her brain. Fucking nasty—Alda nipped a swig from a different vial before dropping the empty one on the ground, just dead weight. But already she could feel her mind sharpening, lighting up like someone'd stuck mine-salts under her nose; it'd keep them up and alert for a while, enough to look past the illusions.

It didn't really work like that—she was a brewmaster, not a miracle-worker—but play with alcohol enough and you could find workarounds to anything. Overblow the mind, wake it up like air and fire, and illusions didn't tend to hold. That had been her job, long ago, when Athábakhanú still remembered itself enough to keep her; brew this to let those who traveled to the border of the Mistlands keep their minds. The dungeon wasn't near as bad, but she'd be a fucking idiot to keep the brew back and wait for a better opportunity.

The effect swept over her immediately—of course it did, this was a battle-brew, she wasn't a fucking ameteur—and Alda hissed, biting back pain. "Aya q'osñi," she snapped, because expletives often helped, shouldering herself up. "Alright. On we go."

Ossega nodded, quicksilver eyes already twice as bright, and on they went. Abandoning the bridge that Azkhal had been so generous in breaking made them off course, but there was another bridge that took them closer to the mist-fox, and that was their only option beyond turning back. Which was not an option. Alda bared her teeth and took the lead.

The mist-fox swept its tail around, clouds kicking up around its paws; but though she saw the fake body spin out alongside it, though she knew its eyes weren't real, she was existing in a state of perfect heightened paranoia. The illusion couldn't trick her to trust it, because she didn't trust anything.

Ossega shattered no less than four rocks beneath his boots as they walked, seeing everything as another scorpion waiting to strike. Lanc kept twitching at his own shadows.

But the butterflies with their gossamer wings didn't entrance them off the edge—the mist-foxes played and darted in their peripherals but never got them to give chase. They stayed huddled together, a mess of wound nerves and raised blades.

The fifth floor moved more quickly; Ossega lashed out at everything and anything, battering away bats and wasps and birds and these horrendous rust-red feathers that darted through the sky like loosed arrows, only his attunement keeping him fast enough to keep up. Lanc spilled more shadow illusions to combat those all around, scorpions revealing their positions much too early and the piercing shrieks of bats aimed at distant foes.

Light bloomed beneath the island before them, a jagged crash of red-orange—it splashed through the clouds like a beacon, sharp enough her eyes ached, before fading away. Another, this one green, off to the left; purple lancing under the bridge–

Then a roar, deep and bestial. But human.

Azkhal.

Fuck, he was still alive—if him, likely Hulimat and Pau as well, somewhere deep below the clouds. Fighting with something by the sounds of it, the flashes too coloured to be lightning; she didn't know if there were ways up, if the fighting would stay contained at the bottom, but hope was a miserable mistress who'd cut your balls off long before she'd kiss you.

Beneath her boots, the island trembled.

They had to move faster.

Lanc hissed—one of his shadow illusions disappeared. He was still sending out these awkward, jittery things, playing pretend of injured animals to see what predators were around them, and they started to die off as she watched. The mist swirled more and more. Getting closer.

Then, from underneath, came a boom.

Something rising.

Ossega swept his axes wide and kicked up a wind—the mist pulled back, blustered from the sheer force of his fury, and peeled away from the base of the tower. Revealed paths, made of carved stone and mushroom-woven ropes, damningly intelligent-made bridges winding their way up to the top of the islands.

And a bear.

Even in the brief glimpse of moving mist, it filled her vision; silver-studded fur, bristling as illusions spilled off its enormous shoulders and flanks like living lights, crowned beneath its silver eyes. Eye, with a scar taking the second, its ear a matching mess of tissue, blood already splattered up its face. A warrior tried and true.

The clouds swept back in to cover it, but not before it peeled its lips away from ivory fangs with a growl.

The pathways extended upward to the top of the islands; a way for the dungeon's predators to kill all those trying to descend. Something that big would likely weigh enough to shatter all of the stone bridges—so it needed another way up. And it was coming.

Fuck this. If Azkhal hadn't managed to kill it, she wouldn't take her chances.

Alda hefted her vial of cthonian russets, pungent enough to make her eyes water, and aimed.

Half a dozen years she'd kept this bottle, letting it ferment, letting it bloom—from dangerous to fatal to more. Her expertise had always been bombs, explosives; alcohol to drink, of course, to let smooth over fears and frustrations until they ran smooth as distillation, but the punch and power was her strength. Her potential. Stolen from Athábakhanú upon her exile; her last true connection to home, considering it couldn't be found elsewhere. All that there was.

She'd make the dungeon grow her a field of cthonian russets. This wasn't a loss but an investment.

Alda clapped her hands, pinched the spark between her fingers, and threw both at the island.

Arching through the air, a spray of deep brown-gold, glint of fire-red in the midst—the mist, parting around—the flames striking the brew–

They hit the island at the same time.

The world roared.

Explosion after explosion howled from the heights and depths, an earthquake, a maelstrom; it punched through stone like wet paper as the air screamed, island collapsing, all thundering down to dust. The shockwave hurled her back, Ossega sprawling and Lanc rolling nearly to the edge of the island; Alda slammed into the stone hard enough to pop stars behind her eyes and punch the air from her lungs. Smoke flooded all around.

But there, in the distance, a faint bellow of pain and surprise. The bear, stopped.

An opportunity she'd paid for with a legacy.

She clawed her way up, past a headache and ears screaming through the afterblows—Ossega and Lanc, so woefully untested, so unprepared for the realities of mine-living, still floundered on the ground. They'd never felt anything like that before. And they never would again.

"Up!" Alda roared.

All around them, the fifth floor still shook like a shot beast—taking down an island wasn't an isolated catastrophe. Already she could hear the cracks spreading, limestone of a karst cavern splitting and warring and dissolving as her explosion bit through the marrow of its stability. Ossega popped up first, knuckles white around his axes; Lanc next, clutching his forehead with a whimper. So fucking soft.

"Go," she demanded, and hauled ass in the opposite direction—back into the clouds, no Pau to search for combatants, but she didn't want to stick around to see how much her blast would destroy this floor. Taking her time meant death.

They joined her—fear was stronger than pain—and together they ran, heedless of threats, as stone wailed and shattered behind them. Another island fell, she could feel the boom as it struck the ground, dust choking out the storm until the air was thick and brown before her.

No threats. Looked like the denizens of this floor didn't much react well when she blew up their home and choked out the air. She'd try that strategy again further on.

Alda lowered her shoulder and bowled straight through the last cloud, trusting the echoes her ears fed to her—and through the creak of untrustworthy stone and bridges purposely degraded, her boots slammed into stable rock. The final island. The end of the fifth floor.

No draconic Guardian. Worrying.

A second later, Ossega popped out, shaking off axes and snarling his gnomish tongue under his breath; her illusion fighting brew was starting to wear off but he was even more tetchy now, bristling at the bit. A habitual reaction. It was little wonder Athábakhanú had stayed so isolationary for so long, at least until they forgot their way.

Then Lanc, shaking, mist clawing at his heels like it wanted him to stay—and then hesitation was for cowards and failures, so Alda spun and marched onward. Deeper than anyone had gone before, with Shoth and Aedan's corpses being devoured somewhere below the islands, into uncharted territory.

Uncharted territory that started with a room swelling out from where a tunnel normally went, large and filled with stalagmites and treasure.

Up until it charged directly through the center of the flames.

Blood-sap, just having gotten out of the water, moving too fast—whatever kept it from igniting didn't matter, because Alda had stopped to take a breath and Ossega had pulled back from the flames and they didn't have time to react before the dryad pounced on Lanc with its fangs bared.

Down they both went, a tangle of limbs and fury; it crouched over him, a jagged mess of hunger, and snapped its muzzle around his throat. Shadows spilled through his fingers, a flood of rats and toads and foxes and birds and fish—its white eyes were only for him. Its fangs sunk into his neck as it tore back.

Scarlet sprayed the sky.

Lanc gurgled, lashed out, and died.

Alda hurled another vial.

The dryad didn't savour in its victory; it threw itself back, kicking off his body, letting the blaze splash over the sand with belched clouds of toxic smoke. It laughed, this chittering, howling sound—its limbs popped and cracked as its legs reversed, hauling it up from its crouch. There was genuine delight in its white eyes.

"No," it said, muzzle splitting into a vicious snarl. "He will not protect."

Ossega roared, and his attunement splashed to his grip like the misty waters of his home—but the dryad had adapted. Had learned. It skittered left as he cleaved through the air where its torso had been, still laughing, limbs popping and reversing as it fell to all fours and dug its claws into the surf; racing around them, circles in the sand, water blurring into blue as they tried to track it.

Alda ripped a cork out with her teeth and spun—spread a circle of it into the sand, just large enough to keep her and Ossega in, and chucked a spark. It caught with a roar, leaping up at the stalactites with orange-white tongues and noxious smoke. A prison of her own making.

The dryad paused. It stalked on the outside of their ring of fire, but in all Alda had done to protect herself, she'd fucked herself, too. Hard to throw flammable things through flames, and Ossega was limited to ranged. This strategy worked all the fucking better when Lanc could use the smoke as cover to weave shadowed illusions for their escape.

Fuck. Fuck.

Alda bared her teeth, feeling around her waist—her thumb brushed where the cthonian russets had sat, gone and used now, still not at the core. This dryad wouldn't kill her. It wouldn't.

But whatever had kept it from burning before worked again.

Crouching, crown of thorns raised high, the dryad dug its claws into the surf and rushed through the fire.

Its charge carried it far, fast, straight into Ossega's side—he clipped it strongly with the cut of his axe but it ignored the pain, ignored the agony, and just bit into him. It howled as his axes descended on it from all sides, cutting away its left arm, tearing through the bark and blood-sap–

But for all he broke it, it broke him first. It battered past his defenses and plunged its fangs into his throat.

Ossega died. And then Alda went from twelve to eleven to ten to nine to seven to six to three to two to one.

It pried itself off his corpse, white eyes flashing and flickering—it stared for a long while at its discarded arm, hacked off with raw bark and heartwood exposed, blood-sap tangling in the sand. It wouldn't survive much longer.

But it looked at her.

"Blood," it hissed, like a fucking nightmare. "Blood to give."

Alda reared up, bellowing. The first fire died and she replaced it with a dozen more, a hundred, a storm of flames lashing out at what should burn easily but didn't. But didn't. And then she was on a beach in a dungeon against a monster with two corpses on the sand and she had nothing more than what was on her.

The dryad shoved past Ossega's corpse, leg snapping in and out to propel it over the fire still flickering in the sand, loping towards her. Its crown of thorns bristled like a reminder. She roared wordlessly and chucked vials, chucked alcohol, threw anything she had—but she was made for a team. Made for a group, dwarves mining together against an unforgiving world, against a dying light from an ancient battleground of the gods–

And she didn't have that. Not anymore.

Alda Thrudkurbiz, so far from home, so far from exile, died as the dryad stabbed its fangs straight through her throat.

-

What was wrong with the weave had come here.

Through the endless they scuttled, many-limbed and many-eyed, but a body for the Great Spider to command. Out of the Haven, of the paradise made and shaped for them, filled with lazy things so opposite the perfect form. The shape they had woven by the Great Spider's command, the mandible threaded with silk, the power that lurked in every corner but wasn't the right power. The life presented to them, but with a strand left open to discover.

The webweaver did not follow where the prey was, where the bugs were. Something deeper pulled them along, far through the darkness, through the tunnels. The weave, the web beyond, the wrongness plaguing its greatness like disease—that was what they followed. Where they went.

They were small and inconsequential. Nothing but a claw for the Great Spider to wield. Anything in the tunnels could kill them, out of the Haven where their safety was guaranteed; but they trusted the Great Spider, and he would not lead them astray.

Which is when they turned a corner and came to another being.

Upright, four limbs instead of eight, no chitin in sight beyond the skins of other animals; no carapace, only two eyes, no claws. A sad thing in a sad existence. It was crouched over the corpse of another, feasting on the gore and guts seeping through a cut in its stomach; not a sacrifice. Just eating. That was not worship.

The webweaver came closer, silent in the halls, but the thing sensed them—jerked upright, mouth pulled out of the cut. Blood over its face, pale tones spattered with red.

It looked at them.

And the webweaver understood.

It was what was wrong. This was it. The thing that had upset the weave, landed on its expanse and shaken the balance. The devotion they had not been able to give yet. Spider-sworn, spider-woven. Wrong. Wrong.

The thing—the boy, the mind, the body—tilted his head to the side, eyes black and glassy. From under fleshy lips came mandibles, came understanding, as he crouched and spread his hands over the stone.

Exchange-trade, he gave, mandibles clicking back and forth. Mine-to-yours.

The webweaver flexed their many legs, mana lashing around their web-connection. It wasn't talking, what they did, not like how the Great Spider spoke into their mind; something lesser. Something basal. But they were communicating over a chasm—though it wasn't understanding in the typical sense, the webweaver found themselves gnawing over one of the concepts. The one of ownership. Yours. Mine.

What-yours? What-mine?

The boy paused, drawing up.

Thing-of-mine, he spun, placing a flat, clawless hand on his chest. Exchange-trade. Thing-of-yours.

Curious. Perhaps giving a larger prey to a larger webweaver who would require more sustenance in exchange for a smaller one. He was here to make a trade with the web. And instead of prey, the thing he had that was mine-his-own, was himself.

The memory of a sacrifice, so long ago. Ripping apart the largest and most powerful of their brethren so that the Great Spider might learn of their making and create more.

Great-Spider, the webweaver wove. You-give-self-to.

The boy flicked his hands. No-give-self, he imbued. Word-speak. No-give. Here-talk-Great-Spider.

The webweaver wasn't much concerned with thoughts of ownership, but they knew to read emotions, to feel the pluck and call through the weave. And they could feel discomfort from what they were saying; that the boy wanted to exchange-trade, but did not have anything to trade but himself. And he didn't want to give himself.

The idea was almost interesting. Did a claw speak out whether it wished to climb or not? Did an eye send complaints of being used to see? No. They simply did.

The boy did not understand. He thought it was a matter of choice and consequence; that there was a personhood and piecemeal collection of mattering. He was wrong. The Great Spider had given them a shape to weave, a vision to manifest; but they did not have the tools proper to do it. And so the Great Spider had sent them a tool so they might complete his task.

Claws and eyes and mouths did not disobey. Those in the web of the Great Spider did not disobey. If they did, they were cut loose and repurposed. They were sacrificed. They were made anew.

The webweaver took a step forward.

The boy sensed their intentions. He stayed low, stayed crouched, but his mandibles flexed. Am-messenger, he gave, with the click of careful precision. Here-talk. Here-exchange-trade.

The Great Spider wanted them to be more. To find meaning within the shape he had given them. And they were the one who had understood the mission, more than those who simply wove the shape without knowing why. They were different. Their thoughts had grown beyond their shell. The largest of their web, the most developed, the only one to follow the wrongness in the weave to find the wriggling thing of its source.

The wrongness was the boy. The boy was not supposed to be here. The boy was wrong.

Communication failed, the boy stood, hands pressed back to his sides. Gore and blood, spilling down his front. Looking to leave, to run away. To make an exchange-trade with the Great Spider. To try and spread his wrongness through the web until he destroyed it.

The Great Spider had delivered a path for true devotion.

The webweaver lunged.