Chapter 38 Trapped

In the upper parts of the Snakeraven inn, a fat merchant rubbed his hands together cunningly. He imagines mountains of gold as he prepares for tomorrow.

“Boy!” he calls out to Hess.

“S-sir?”

“Did you finish polishing and cleaning all the goods?”

“Almost, sir.”

“What? You should’ve finished by now!” Bertram sighed “It needs to get done!” he said with a poisonous voice as Hess left the room with his head lowered.

Leaning back in his chair, he had a puff from a cigar. Clearly, he wasn’t as angry as he led Hess to believe – but for some reason, he had an extremely short temper with Hess, while he would never yell angrily at anyone else. Perhaps because he knew he could get away with it.

Bertram turned his chair and looked out the rose glass windows of the inn. He knew that a military escort was coming, bringing with them even more naïve adventurers – these were Bertram’s prey.

Losla was the third village the military escort would stop at before travelling to numerous others in the region. They will have been traveling for three days by now, and would need to rest and resupply for a day or two here at Losla.

“I’m going to make so much money this year,” he smiled, blowing out smoke “Maybe the soldiers will even buy a few of my better weapons… after I reveal them.” he snickered.

Bertram planned to use the same trick he did with the Losla adventurers – sell them overpriced, low quality weapons, then the next day display much better weapons while allowing them to trade the old weapons for a small price reduction.

Having worked as a trader for most of his life, Bertram knew what people were like. He planned to display the better weapons on the very last day the soldiers were planning to leave. This would force them to make an impulsive decision and buy his goods.

A triumphant smile appeared on his face “Ah, it’s so easy being me” he laughed, before taking another puff on his cigar.

– – –

Creaks of wood sounded throughout the empty, dark forest, echoing back and forward. Jay and his skeletons crept through with their swords at the ready – he felt like he had been watched since before they even entered the dungeon.

Something wasn’t right here. Even the air felt strange, it felt thicker somehow – he felt as if his body and footsteps were being held back or slowed down by it – yet when he looked at his feet, there was nothing there.

The party kept walking cautiously along a dark-dirt path that winded through the trees, still in a triangle formation..

Jay noticed his steps kept getting harder to take, it was as if something was pulling him back.

“Is the dungeon doing this? Maybe I’m just tired?” he wondered.

Suddenly, Jay’s shield squeezed his arm – looking left, he only caught a glimmer, a sliver of something white disappearing into thin air.

“What the…” He raised his shield, ready for the attack – yet after waiting a moment nothing happened.

“I guess not…” he lowered his shield slightly.

He squinted into the sea of trees looking for any signs of movement, but found nothing.

With his shield slightly lowered, he slowly kept walking through the forest. As the trees continued to create croaking and knocking sounds, Jay thought this was a little too tense for a level one dungeon. The anticipation was starting to get to him.

The sounds of creaking wood continued as they walked, causing hairs to rise on Jay’s neck. Jay’s shield squeezed his arm periodically, causing them to stop, readying themselves for an attack – but every time, nothing happened.

“This is annoying…” Jay shook his head, completely lowering his shield now. He felt like he was being teased.

Shaking his head out of frustration, and because it was a level one dungeon, he just decided to just ignore the warnings from his shield, Deathwalker’s Sentry, and keep walking at a normal pace.

[Stress Response Activated – +5% Melee damage]

At this point, He didn’t really care if he got sneak attacked or not – he would gladly take a hit to get this over with.

Throwing caution out the window, he marched forward with audacity.

His shield started squeezing his arm more frequently now, “Ah stuff it!” he said as he ignored it and kept walking down the dark path.

Blue seemed to want to keep stopping to prepare for an attack, but it’s will was overridden by Jays’; it’s master’s will reigns supreme of course.

Suddenly, a skeleton was attacked – it was Red, who was behind Jay.

“Finally” Jay sighed, turning around as he was ready to stab and slash at anything to relieve the tension.

Looking at Red, Jay finally understood what was going on.

A white spider with crimson red eyes had pounced on Red, it’s piercing legs were wrapped around Red while its dagger-like fangs sunken into Red’s rib cage – but to little effect. It was pumping venom into the rib cage cavity, but it harmlessly trickled out and ended up as a useless mess on the ground.

Red was quick to respond to the attack – it had already raised a sword against the spider’s abdomen – but it couldn’t slash or piece because of the spider’s legs wrapped around it, holding its arms down.

Jay’s eyes bulged, glad that he wasn’t currently being pumped full of venom – but since he was frustrated, he didn’t hesitate as he leapt at the large white spider. Taking a step forward, he slashed one of the legs around Red.

The spider didn’t shriek or retreat but instead chose to fight more aggressively, clutching Red tighter as it pierced on another part of Red’s body with its fangs, pumping more venom harmlessly onto the bones.

To Jay’s surprise, his sword cleaved straight through the leg. He looked at his sword for a moment, realizing how sharp it was.

“Huh, well I guess it is a level one dungeon after all… I guess I’ve gotten much stronger without realizing” he chuckled to himself.

The fight now seemed trivial; the realization dawned on him that he was level seven in a level one dungeon. Since he realized it was going to be easy, he took time to analyse the spider.

<[Ethereal Spider Level 2]>

[Type: Arachnid – Normal]

[HP 17/17]

[MP 5/9]

<[Skills]>

[Poisonous Bite]

– 2 Pierce damage – 1 Poison damage over 3 seconds (Can stack 2 times)

[Clasp]

– Detain an enemy. Enemy becomes constricted. Lasts 5 seconds +1 seconds for every 1 strength higher than the enemy.

– Constricted: Unable to attack with clasped appendages.

[Fade]

– Under certain conditions it can become ethereal. Non-functional in direct sunlight.

– Ethereal: Becomes invisible and non-physical.

[Ether Silk Craft] (Unique)

– Unique skill of the Ethereal Arachnid type. Produces ghost silk, which it can make invisible by supplying mana.

– Condition for [Fade]: Must be on top of ether silk to use [Fade] skill.

<[Description]>

– Most creatures that wander into spider territory are never seen again, still, some creatures survive; However, fewer survive wandering into an ethereal spider territory – many of its victims don’t even realise they’re trapped until it’s too late.

Reading the description, a shiver went up Jay’s spine as he was thinking about entering this dungeon as a level one adventurer, before he shook his head.

“Probably shouldn’t think about endless hypotheticals… but seriously, this dungeon would suck. Getting sneak attacked by a level two spider while being covered in web. Pretty dangerous.” he shook his head at how harsh this dungeon was.

“But I’m not level one anymore though, am I?” he proudly said to himself “The spider only has seventeen health. My swords can kill it in three swings.”

Jay smirked for a moment before leisurely snapping his fingers, causing Lamp to run around behind the back of the spider.

He felt like being harsh back to the dungeon was like a sort of cosmic justice.

Standing behind it, Lamp slashed its sword across the spider’s abdomen, causing a large tear to form – lumps of green and black slime fell to the ground, though the thorax still had life in it.

Lamp smashed it with the old buckler Jay gave it, but the spider continued to thrash at Red with reckless abandon. With a final attack, Lamp plummeted its sword right into the centre of the spider’s thorax, creating a cracking sound as it ended it in an instant.

[30 Exp]

Jay looked smug.

“This is gunna be so easy.” he checked Red’s HP, confirming his assumption “Poison won’t even do anything to the undead.”

With a chuckle, he went to loot the spider corpse – but froze for a moment as the world changed.

Suddenly and without warning, the ground changed white in this area – it was completely covered with silk. The spider had died so it could no longer supply mana to it, causing the ether silk to become visible.

“Wow…” the world around him and became completely white. There were webs all over the trees and the ground. Curtains of silk hung in front, blocking the path ahead, while a covering of silk was hanging from bare branches above, causing this part of the forest to become even darker.

Looking down, Jay realized why he felt like the air was thicker – his shirt had hundreds of strands of silk over them, while his shoes had massive lumps of silk stuck to them, they had progressively clumped up as he walked. Clearly, the silk had been what had made him feel like the air was thicker previously. The silk had a different feel to it when it was invisible, but now the webs felt like any other normal spider web. Jay began to pull them off.

“Ugh, annoying.”

He used one foot to stamp down on the silk attached to the other, trying not to touch it as he formed a ball. He tried to kick it away but it remained stuck to his foot.

Sighing out of frustration, he willed Red to come over and remove the silk ball; now the skeleton had a ball of silk stuck to it instead. Jay made Red stick the silk ball inside its rib cage for the meantime, getting it out of the way so Red could be combat capable.

Looking around, Jay almost laughed as he noticed Blue.

Blue was covered in curtains of silk since it was in the lead, It’s head was completely wrapped. Taking the silk assault head-on, Blue collected most of the silk since it was in the lead – though Blue’s upgraded strength made it seem like it wasn’t affected by it at all. With a few rakes of it’s claws, Blue scraped large clumps of silk off it’s skeletal body, adding it to the ball inside Red’s rib cage.

Jay shook his head with a smile, humored by his skeletons but also a little annoyed by the dungeon so far. The silk was frustrating, and the tension build-up while waiting for the spiders to sneak attack was irritating too.

Though it wasn’t physically hard, It was more of a psychological drain from the tension that the dungeons atmosphere created. However, Jay still preferred this dungeon over the stink-rat marsh. Being covered in silk was much better than being covered in the stinking marsh gunk. The trade-off was that the spiders would ambush them.

Walking over to the spider corpse, Jay looted the body.

[Ghost Silk]x3

– Rare crafting material.

“Ghost silk huh? No poison sack, or fangs?” He expected to get something completely different from the spider corpse, while being a little disappointed since the soap-rat’s gave a lot more variety of loot for their corpses: teeth, bones and fur scraps.

Scratching his chin, he remembered that he still has to get the teeth off the skeletons.

“Boys, where’s my teeth?”

The skeletons walked over to Jay, holding out their boney hands, each of them only had two teeth each.

“What the? Where’s all the other teeth…?”

One of the teeth then fell off the skeleton’s bone hands.

“Ohh, right.” he tilted his head to the side, thinking he had been a bit short-sighted “Probably hard to carry anything small with your bone hands. I should’ve given you guys a bag or something.” he scratched his chin with a humorous smile as he imaged them surrounding a pile of teeth trying to pick them all up.

Collecting the teeth of each skeleton, he had gained 6 stink-rat teeth; a much smaller amount than he was expecting.

“Oh well, we can only keep going. We’ve only got about 30 minutes till I should head back. Let’s make this quick boys.”

Continuing, he walked deeper into the forest without any fear.

“They won’t sneak attack me with my triangle formation. Naturally, they would attack one on the outside, so I should be pretty safe.” he reasoned as he looked up and thought “And I’ll be able to feel when we enter more spider territory because the air will feel thicker.”

With a spring in his step, Jay continued deeper into the woods.