Demon Lord of the Swarm Chapter 4 (original chapter Chapter 86)

Taking control of the Spinners and Thread Gun Spider, I bared my teeth. The fact that my Web Spiders had been all but useless wasn't much of a revelation. They were trap builders, nothing more. It still stung though.

My Trapmaster had done better, but it was hard for it to fight out in the open. Ideally, it would have a network of tunnels to work out of, with flaps on the floor to dart out of and drag enemies down into the tunnel with it. I made a note to add some.

Now I was dealing with ranged fighters. If I was using the PRT Threat Assessment Ratings to assign numbers to my spiders, the Web Spiders would be Blaster/Shaker 2, Mover 3 and Brute 1 at best. The Trapmaster was slightly higher in the Blaster/Shaker department by a point or so, but it was still nothing to write home about by itself.

The Spinners were solid Blasters though, Blaster 2, maybe 3 at a push, while the Thread Gun Spider was Blaster 4, no questions. These 'adventurers' had had an easy time of it…aside from Damien the Knight falling into a couple of pits.

Pfft! I still laugh at the memory.

Garret pushed the door open and waited. Did all places he broke into have a trap on the door or something? Sheesh.

"All clear." He said. "Now please don't go running in, Damien. Remember what happened last time."

"Oh get over it." Damien snorted. "You got a little bite on your shoulder that Cyn healed for you. Boo-fuckin'-hoo."

"A poisoned bite, thank you very much." the rogue muttered as he carefully entered the second room of my dungeon. "Goddamn spiders. I hate spiders."

Sucks to be him then.

"Grow a pair, willya?" Damien rolled his eyes as he followed his party member.

"Like you're any better with worms." Garret accused him over the shoulder.

"We do not talk about those…things." The Knight shuddered.

"Grow a pair." Valerie mocked as she and Cynthia came in after him.

Just as he turned his head to glare at the Fire Mage, a coughing sound was heard and a mess of thread slammed into Damien's head and proceeded to stick to and entrap his limbs.

"GAAAH!" Damien shouted. "What the hell?!"

"Projectile Spider!" Valerie shouted, pointing at my Thread Gun Spider.

As Damien writhed on the ground, Garret knelt next to him to try and cut him loose, but he dodged back the next moment to dodge the long strand of thread that would have grabbed his head.

"Shadows take you!" he cursed. "A Projectile Spider and Spinneret Spiders?! What the hell?!"

"Less talk, more killing." Valerie barked. "Spirit of fire, gift me with thine blessing! Scorch and burn, Fireball!"

A grapefruit-sized ball of orange flames appeared in her hand and she lobbed it at my Thread Gun Spider, which I had fire back immediately with a three round rapid-fire burst of thread, even as it leapt away.

Naturally, the thread did bugger all to the fire except burn away to ashes, but by the time the fireball extinguished itself against a rare blank spot on the wall, my spiders were all in constant motion, firing their webbing wildly and with abandon.

"Sod this!" Garret muttered. His hands vanished into his cloak for a moment before emerging, clutching several daggers. He threw a handful each at two of my Spinner Spiders, which I dutifully made dodge.

Then the daggers automatically corrected their flight path and buried themselves into the bodies and abdomen of my spiders! What the hell?!

"Ah, the Trick Shot always gets 'em." The rogue chuckled.

My remaining Spinner managed to tangle up Cynthia before a Flame Needle from Valerie ended it, which was rather good. On the bad side of things, Damien managed to rip his way out of the thread prison…just to be hit by my Thread Gun Spider again.

"Gaack! Not again!"

"Damn, I think this Demon Lord hates you, Damien."

"Stop observing calmly and get me out of this, Val!"

The antics of my spiders were finally ended by the attacks of Garret and Valerie. Despite the squabbling that the two did every now and then, they were a solid team, I had to give them credit for that. Damien, on the other hand was getting more and more angry and frustrated with every trap and non-lethal attack I sent his way.

Mana Limit reached!

That was quick. I hurriedly purchased another sword and shield set from the store to reduce the amount of mana I had in my Dungeon.

While I did that, Garret had cut Damien out of his little cocoon of threads and the large man started cursing under his breath.

"Calmly does it, Damien." Cynthia advised him firmly as Garret started cutting her loose too. "We need our wits about us if we are to make it through this maze of traps and monsters in one piece. Giving in to anger will only doom us."

"I know that." the Knight growled. He took a few moments to calm himself down before continuing. "Spinneret Spiders are borderline Tier 2 monsters, with the Thread Projectile Spider a mid-Tier 2 monster. I think that for some reason the difficulty is going up as we go further in."

"That's not an uncommon thing, Damien." Valerie informed him. "If anything, the first couple of floors are more a test for the invaders than anything else. After that, the Demon Lord tends to get serious."

"What I mean is that the next room is gonna be even tougher." Damien rolled his eyes. "From this point on, bring out your best efforts. No more pissing about."

"We have been serious the entire time." Garret deadpanned at the Knight. "The only one who's seemed to be playing about has been you, Sir Pitfall."

This earned Garret a glare.

As it turned out, all they got from the spiders in this room was a pile of copper coins. Where, exactly, was this money coming from? I wasn't making it, nor was my DP or Mana being consumed to create them. Was the system generating them all by itself?

With a bare minimum of chatting, the invaders headed out the exit and towards the next room, dodging the traps as they went. I made a note to up the amount of webs in the corridors to prevent rogues from being assholes like this.

In the third room, I had my close combat spiders, the deadly Small Poisonous Spider and the Chitin Blade Spider, waiting. Unlike in the previous two rooms, I'd give no handicaps. As soon as they were all in the room and the doors shut, I'd mob them with my spiders from above.

Spider paratroopers…now there was an idea. Hmmm…

Once Garret went through his usual push-the-door-open-to-avoid-traps routine, the foursome crept in, weapons ready. Damien was the most physical threat out of them all, so I would hold him off with the Chitin Blade Spider while the poisonous Spiders dealt with his party members.

3…2…1…now!

At my mental command, the spiders dropped from their perches on the ceiling where I had arrayed them for battle. Their fall was almost completely silent, but the whistling of their passage somehow alerted Garret that something was amiss and he looked up.

"Dodge, NOW!" he shouted and hurled himself to one side, the other following his order with only a second of hesitation which meant that rather than landing on their heads, my spiders landed on their legs or missed them completely.

"Holy shit!" Damien shouted as he reflexively swung his blade at the Chitin Blade Spider. "A Black Blade Spider!"

"Black Fang Spiders too!" Garret shouted as he threw a brace of knives at the spider stalking towards him.

"They appear to have mutated somewhat." Cynthia noted as she swung her mace and sent the spider attacking her staggering back. "Normal Black Fang Spiders do not have so much chitin or any spikes whatsoever."

"Who cares, just kill them!" Valerie shouted before blocking the advance of the spider attacking her with the staff she carried. "Spirit of Flames, grant me thine blessing. Encapsulated fire, and forge it to my will, Flame Sword!"

In her free hand, a one-handed sword, not unlike my short swords, appeared, which she then used to stab her opponent to death. It also caused some burns to its innards, much to my lack of surprise.

Garret, being a rogue, was not the best in direct confrontations, especially when the enemy was heavily armoured like my close combat spiders were. What he was good at though was dodging and biding his time to inflict critical damage with his knives, slicing the joints of the foremost pair of legs until they flopped down, useless.

"Whoa!" he dodged to the side as the spider that faced him, controlled by me who was tired of him having it easy; spat a globule of poison at him. "Hey! These aren't Black Fang Spiders! They're Spray Fang Spiders!"

"Great." Cynthia deadpanned before crushing her enemy with a well-placed strike of her mace. I thought the healing classes were supposed to be weak in close combat?!

"And that's quite enough from you!" Garret mock-scolded his enemy as he slid a dagger neatly into the thin gap between its head and body.

While all this was going on, Damien the Knight was having a hard time with the Chitin Blade Spider. Despite its larger size and thus greater weight compared to the other spiders, thanks to my control, it was running rings around him.

Damien's once pristine armour had already been through the wringer up until this point anyway; slammed in a pit, dumped into slime, wrapped up by thread, hit with a wooden arrow…yeah, it had been through a lot. Now it was covered in dents and scratches, with parts of it discoloured by the slime. Just to top it all off, I was carving lines into it with the numerous chitin blades the spider had, whilst dodging the very-easy-to-read-and-predict strikes of the Knight's greatsword. Especially with the expanded vision granted by the eight eyes of a spider added into my [Dungeonsight].

"Fireball!" Valerie launched her spell at my spider, to which I responded by launching the spider into the air and firing a large glob of poison at Damien, who slashed it away with his sword. Unfortunately for him, that left him open to my true attack.

The Blade Chitin Spider rolled itself into a ball and descended upon the Knight like a spiky orb of spidery doom, slamming into his chestplate with a crunching sound.

"Damien!" The other three shouted.

"I'm fine!" he shouted. The Knight then grabbed a spike and hauled the oversized spider off of him and stabbed it before twisting his blade and dragging it out of the Chitin Blade Spider with an almost effortless slash.

As best as I could tell, none of these guys had any sort of magical weapon, aside from that cool fire blade that Valerie had conjured, or any other kind of magical equipment, aside from Valerie's staff. How the hell were these people going through my monsters like this?!

"Gods. Damned. Spiders." Garret muttered. "Spray Fang Spiders, a mutation of Black Fang Spiders. A Tier 2 monster. Not to mention a sodding Black Blade Spider, a low Tier 3 Monster! This is getting ridiculous! What kind of newborn Dungeon has Tier 3 monsters on the first bloody floor?!"

Valerie burst out laughing as she pointed at Damien's armour. More specifically at the abdominal section. Nonplussed, everyone else looked. Carved into it was a word in capital letters.

'IDIOT'

"Ahahahahahahahahaha!" the mage slapped her thigh. "Oh, that Demon Lord doesn't like you at all, Damien!"

Going red in the face with fury, Damien clenched the hilt of his sword tightly and muttered curses under his breath.

Throwing a disapproving look at Valerie, who was still all but crippled with laughter, Cynthia moved over to her Knight friend. "Are you injured?"

"I…don't think so." Damien answered with a grunt. "Could you give me a once over, just to be certain?"

"No problem." The priestess nodded and started to mutter something under her breath.

While that was going on, I pondered. While tweaking the nose of that Knight was fun and all, it was also an experiment for me. Obviously this was a different world right now, so I doubted that anyone spoke English of any flavour. So then, how was it that I could understand what these people were saying and even hearing it as English, hmm? I suppose I could simply chalk it up to some freaky translation magic, but this made me pause. Plainly, that was English carved into the steel plate armour. I had used the eyes of the Blade Chitin Spider to make sure of that. So then, how was it that Valerie, and I assume the others, could read it?

More and more questions were being racked up by this invasion. I resolved to get some of them answered at some point today.

When the four checked the corpses for loot, they found ten copper, two silvers and a handful of black throwing darts made of chitin. The rogue appropriated the darts, as none of the others had learned how to use throwing weapons.

The loot thing was also a worry.

"Now, I'll still go first, because a copper gets you a silver that the Dungeon Lord isn't going to back off after all of this." Garret said as he opened the door and was confronted by the thick webs on the other side blocking the way out.

"So we can see." Valerie drawled.

Grumbling about smart-ass Demon Lord and Mages, Garret stepped forward with one dagger out and ready to cut a thread when he stood on the Slime Trap that I had laid for just this moment. Being a rogue, he could have normally leapt away, but with no traction to do so, he was helpless as he careened forwards and fell into my Insect Pitfall.

"Aaaaaaarrrrgghggggghhhh!" Garret screamed as he was swallowed by the pit of bugs.

"Lady of Light!" Cynthia blanched as she hurried over to peer into the pit. "Garret?!"

"Ten Lords of War, what foul mind concocted this kind of pitfall!?" Damien swore. "Garret, get your ass out of there!"

"Damn, I can't use any fire magic in there!" Valerie cursed as her grip on her staff tightened perceivably.

"GAAAAAHHHH!" Garret burst out of the mess of bugs and stabbed his daggers into the sides of the pit, using them as climbing pitons. Clever man.

Achievement unlocked: Caught a Slippery One! You Earn 10 DP!

Achievement unlocked: Bugsbugsbugsbugsbugsbugsbugs! You Earn 10 DP!

Achievement unlocked: Diet of Bugs! You Earn 10 DP!

I facepalmed at the second one. I'll admit that being covered in bugs was a bit disturbing the first time, but I got used to it after a short while, to the point that I have to think for a moment before remembering that people freak out at the thought normally. Amazing what you can get used to, eh?

Seeing that Garret was hurriedly stripping off his clothes to remove all of the bugs from them, I hurriedly moved to the maze room and assumed control over the Spiders there basically setting the intruders against every single spider monster they'd faced up until this point, plus the Threadmaster Spider, was a big step up in lethality, if you asked me, but hey, I didn't want to die again, thank you very much.

Given how cautious they were, I doubted that they would fail to keep an eye on the ceiling from here on out, so I reluctantly scrapped the idea of repeating the ceiling ambush as soon as they entered the maze. Instead, I'd use one of my Dungeon Magic spells at this point.

With an act of will, a focus on the spell and a dip into my MP, a webbed wall appeared where the tunnel to the exit was located. Unless one of them walked through it, the spell was very hard to detect, let alone break.

Now, I could go through all of the death-defying antics that the four adventurers went through in the maze room, but that would take too long. Suffice to say, that they were very angry and tired by the end of it. Valerie had a close encounter with the Chitin Blade Spider and ended up with most of her dress' skirt slashed to ribbons, revealing some very nice legs.

Garret had lost his hood by this point, revealing that he had a very ordinary face with messy brown hair and very bushy eyebrows. His ash-grey eyes were darting all over the place rapidly like a demented game of ping pong.

Cynthia was really impressing me here. The only visible sign of agitation was the narrowing of her eyes. Other than the mussing of her robes and hair, she was utterly unaffected by the Dungeon thus far, which was really irritating. Was she being protected by her Goddess or something?

…that isn't something I ever thought that I would ever say.

Damien the Knight…looked like crap. He had been forced to abandon his right arm's gauntlet after my Threadmaster had tried to hold him in place against my Chitin Blade Spider's Hedgehog Manoeuvre. The rest of his armour was just as battered and beaten as before, with even more holes in it. The greatsword he held was also notched and pitted along its length.

"A sodding Grand Weaver Spider!" Garret was saying somewhat hysterically as he picked up the coil of spider silk rope that the Threadmaster spider had dropped. "Low Tier 3 again! What next?!"

"You left out the other eleven spiders that we had to fight." Valerie pointed out. "I think we should give this up as a bad idea, Damien. Your armour's been ripped to pieces, my robes are in the same state and we're all exhausted. We should leave and come back later with at least two more members, including a Shield Knight to tank the hits better."

"I am not retreating from this bedamned dungeon!" Damien growled.

"Damien, we are coming up against stronger enemies than we anticipated." Cynthia said persuasively. "The Demon Lord of this Dungeon must be exceptionally powerful. There is no dishonour in retreating at this point. We have reliable information on the first four rooms and that will almost certainly get us to Gold One-Star Rank."

"Besides, we have no idea where the next sodding door is." Garret added.

With a roar of anger, Damien threw his greatsword at the wall…which just so happened to be the illusionary wall I had conjured. Well hell.

"AH-HA!" the Knight bellowed triumphantly. "Val, can you sense any magic there?"

"The entire Dungeon is full of magic." The mage growled in frustration. "It's hard to detect a fireball in front of my face, let alone an illusion as powerful as this one seems to be."

To demonstrate, she ran her hand along the 'wall' of the illusion. "It has actual texture. It feels like the rest of the walls. A bit of effort and…voila."

She shoved her hand through, swiftly followed by the rest of herself. "Come on through! I have your big knife, Damien!"

"It's a sword, not a knife." The Knight grumbled as he stomped through the illusion.

Sighing, I moved my sight to the puzzle room and started the randomisation, setting the first puzzle to be selected once the door behind the invaders slammed shut. The beauty of this little room was that if they failed even one puzzle, or even failed to solve one inside of the time limit imposed, they would be attacked by four random monsters, as well as having the number of puzzles they needed to solve reset back to eight, regardless of how many you had solved beforehand.

It was a bit petty and evil of me to put this room in, but hey, anything to survive invaders, right?

The room, once the invaders entered it, was circular. It had a large circular stone, with the numbers 0 to 8 marked on it and an arrow pointing at the eight, hanging on the wall and a bright spotlight on the centre of the room. When the door slammed shut, ghostly green letters appeared in mid-air in front of the stunned adventurers.

[Welcome to the Spider Puzzle Room]

To advance, you need to solve eight consecutive puzzles. Instructions on what to do for each puzzle or challenge will be made visible until a member of your party touches the puzzle or speaks aloud.

Fail even once and the counter will be reset and you shall be attacked.

There is a time limit for each puzzle to be solved within or you will automatically fail. The timer of the puzzle will not start until you come within one step of it or thirty seconds pass, whichever comes first.

Should you wish to decline to advance, the entire party need only state such aloud and you will be warped back to outside the first room. To confirm you will take part in the Spider Puzzle Room, simply do not decline to advance during the thirty seconds after this message vanishes.

Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind. The choice, brave adventurers, is entirely yours.

"O…Kaaaayyy…." Garret said slowly. "Cyn, Val, are you thinking what I am thinking?"

"That this is by no means as easy as it appears?" Val snorted.

"That the level of this Dungeon is far higher than it should be?" the priestess correctly deduced.

"Yep for both." Garret nodded. "No way anyone less skilled than Iron Two-Star Rank Adventurers, and a full part of six at that, would get past the second room. We are at the pinnacle of the Silver Rank and we barely made it past the fourth room alive and intact. I'd rate this whole Dungeon as Gold Two-Star so far."

"A Platinum or Diamond Class Adventurer of any rank could go through this place easily though." Damien mentioned with a grunt, as if unwilling to admit how good my dungeon was.

"That's because those are two of the top three classes." Val said dryly. "A Titanium Class Adventurer, as the third highest class, could also beat this Dungeon, albeit not with the ease that the other two could manage."

Holy…so Gold isn't the top class then?! Crap, I needed to step up my game here…everything they were saying insinuates that a single one of these top Adventurer classes could curb-stomp me, which wasn't good. I would just have to hope that this Stevensport place that they seemed to come from didn't have any on their payrolls.

Watching the four stumble their way through the puzzles was rather amusing. The first was a Rubik's Cube, which was amusing. It took Cynthia three tries (and eight dead spiders) to get right within the time limit. Next was a jumbled picture puzzle that Garret solved easily. Swiftly on its heels was a water diversion puzzle, where you had to build pipes to siphon water from one source across to a hole whilst dealing with obstacles and the water slowly flowed through the pipe after a while.

Next there was the classic sphinx riddle and you had to choose one picture out of four as the answer. Then there was a 'spot-the-difference' challenge between two pictures. The sixth was a 'guess the next in the sequence' puzzle. That was hard and Valerie only barely managed to solve it in time.

The final two challenges were tricky ones. The seventh was a cool one, actually. Cynthia had to get a hollow sphere of glass out of a deep tank without entering the tank or touching the glass sphere with her bare hands or by using magic. She had a choice of two tools to use; the ones she chose were a neverending flow of water and a net, which solved the problem easily.

The last problem for the adventurers required two of them to participate. One was blindfolded and had to walk forwards, while the other one, using one-word instructions like 'forwards' 'left' 'right' and 'stop' had to guide the blindfolded one across an obstacle course that did all it could to trip up and topple them. If the blindfolded one fell at any point, or even placed their hands on the ground, they failed.

Frustratingly, they managed to get through it. Dammit, I was so going to up the difficulty of those puzzles!

As the doors slammed open, a ragged cheer made itself known from the adventurers' throats. It had evidently been extremely mentally taxing on them.

"What the bloody hell was with some of those puzzles?" Damien demanded helplessly. He was the only one who hadn't done any of them.

"They were testing our logic and problem solving skills for the most part." Cynthia mused. "The last one definitely tested Garret's ability to trust Valerie."

"I know some adventurers, Platinum Rank included, who would have been totally stumped by those puzzles." Valerie shook her head. "This place doesn't just require you to have the right level of strength and equipment; you also have to have at least some intelligence and deduction skills to boot. Your average party in Stevensport has neither, as they're usually Knight-heavy."

"For good reason." Damien pointed out as they made their way out of the room. "The Dire Wolves from the Flegrand Woods nearby have a pretty decent resistance to magic and have pretty wicked claws and fangs to boot. Going in heavily armoured is the best way to deal with them, and they breed like rabbits too, so we'll never run out of wolves to cut up."

"Claire isn't heavily armoured." Cynthia pointed out.

"She's also a Gold Three-Star, almost at Titanium One-Star." Garret replied dryly. "She is also known as Clair 'The Step of the Wind' for a reason. Her mastery of the [Windstep] skill is legendary. No one can touch her unless she wants to be touched. Plus she has that enchanted mithril chestplate. I've never seen her wounded since she came back from the Wood Elven Capital, Woodhaven, with it."

Crap. So the local equivalent of an A-Rank Parahuman is a speed expert, eh? I can think of a few counters to a Mover.

I grinned as they walked along the corridor to the Boss' Room. This was going to be epic. Given the state of their weapons, armour and fatigue, I had a pretty good idea that they wouldn't last long against my Black Widow. Fingers crossed.

"That," Garret said a few minutes later, "is a big door."

They were standing gawping up at the door to my boss…which had somehow morphed from ones the size of double doors to ones the size of a castle gate. How? Why? I give up about this dungeon stuff sometimes, I really do.

"Boss room, do you reckon?" Damien asked.

"Indubitably." Cynthia nodded sagely.

"Can you speak plainly instead of the fancy-dancy language that the priests use?" the Knight huffed.

"She said yes." Valerie rolled her eyes before becoming serious. "How many trump cards do we all have?"

"I've got two." Damien said with a shrug.

"One." Garret said next.

"Two." Cynthia added.

"And I have two as well." The Fire Mage nodded. "'Rhett, don't use yours until the Demon Lord. The rest of us should just use one against this boss only if absolutely necessary."

That got a round of nods. Trump cards? What, like powerful skills or spells? Great, more things to worry about.

As soon as they were ready, Damien pressed one hand to the doors and they swung open with a groan and the shriek of a rusty hinge, revealing a large triangular room seemingly bare of anything.

As the adventurers entered, Garret recoiled when he saw the spider gargoyles that decorated the walls. "Sodding spiders. Why spiders of all things? Why not wolves? Or ants? Or bears? Hell, even earthworms would be better!"

"No they wouldn't now shut up about them!" Damien snapped with a controlled shudder. Ah right, he had a thing against worms. Wonder if that extended to snakes too?

As soon as Cynthia, the last of the adventurers, entered, the doors slammed shut behind her with a bang. The four looked aro8und nervously, searching for the floor boss.

"Where the bloody hell is it?!" Damien hissed.

A drop fell in front of his eyes and landed on the ground, hissing as it ate away at the stone floor. Looking up, the Knight's eyes widened and he shouted in surprise. Following his gaze, the others saw the enormous form of the Boss positioned above them, eight legs spread out to stand on the gargoyles as it gazed down hungrily at the intruders.

"Oh…Lord of Shadows…!" Garret whimpered. This was his worst nightmare made manifest.

"A Death Incarnate Spider Mother…!" Valerie was bone white as she muttered numbly.

"It's coming!" Cynthia shouted, raising her mace. The shout shook the others from their stupor just as the Black Widow leapt from the wall and somersaulted over them to land between them and the exit leading in my direction. It hissed menacingly and three magic circles appeared before it, disgorging the three Poison Fang Spider minions I had purchased for it.

"Three Death Fang Spiders. Great, what next?!" Damien muttered somewhat hysterically. "I'll take care of holding off the boss with my trump card. You three deal with the smaller ones first."

"On it." Valerie raised her staff.

"Let's go, monster!" Damien shouted. "[Perfect Warrior]!"

A golden glow surrounded him and I was astonished to see his armour and sword flow back into perfect shape. No dents, scratches, notches or discolorations were left once the glow faded slightly. If anything, they shone like they were freshly forged. And when Damien charged, he moved far quicker than he had ever moved before, becoming a blur as he adroitly dodged past the Poison Fang Spiders and attacked the Black Widow.

A skill-slash-spell that restores the user's armour and weapons to full durability and function and ups the physical abilities of the user for a period of time after being invoked?! Talk about a hax skill. Fortunately, even with his power up, the Black Widow is still faster and its chitin is the thickest out of all of the spiders on this floor; even a greatsword with magical strength backing it won't break through it so easily.

While Damien fought the Black Widow, Valerie, Cynthia and Garret faced off against the Poison Fang Spiders. As they were almost as heavily armoured as the Chitin Blade Spiders, Garret's knives were not as effective as he would have liked. Plus, with their long legs, the spells and knives were too slow.

"Right…my turn." Valerie said grimly. "This is taking too long. [Cast Master]!"

A purple aura surrounded her as she raised her staff towards the three spider monsters, silently firing several fireballs that struck the spiders and erupted into a veritable conflagration. One managed to evade the hungry flames and was instead smashed by a flurry of blows from Cynthia's mace.

"How long until [Cast Master] runs out?" she asked the Fire Mage.

"Another minute tops." Valerie replied. "And Damien's [Perfect Warrior] has about the same left."

"Let's get to it then." Garret said grimly.

A skill that allowed the user to cast multiple spells at the same time, and without lengthy incantations to boot?! That was definitely worthy of being called a trump card.

The three comrades swiftly joined Damien, who was starting to flag against the Black Widow. I wanted to take control of the Boss, but apparently a Boss was special and I couldn't assume control of it. Hmm…OK then…let's test their resolve.

[Dungeon Magic: Dungeon Fear Aura]!

A billowing black aura surrounded the Black Widow that halted the adventurers in their tracks. They were struck by a crippling fear aura not too dissimilar to what Glory Girl's aura had done to those she faced in combat.

"Wh…what…is this…?!" Damien choked out as the golden light of his skill sputtered and faded away completely.

"Fear…aura…the Demon Lord…is interfering!" Valerie choked out, her own aura fading too.

"[Chorus of Sanctuary]!" Cynthia bellowed, a golden light enveloping her and her friends, protecting them from the effects of my spell. Drat. These people were literally my mortal enemies! Why couldn't I have gotten some weak Copper One-Stars instead as my first enemies, dammit?!

Freed from their fear, the four worked together to attack the Black Widow. Valerie chanted a spell and engulfed the giant spider in a dome of fire, which it swiftly leapt out of. While I hadn't purchased the intelligence upgrade (not that it could use it against only four enemies), the Black Widow was smart enough on its own to know to get out of fire sharpish.

"I can't believe it withstood an [Aflame Inferno] even for a moment!" The Fire Mage spluttered in disbelief.

"Concentrate! Boss monsters are demons that make regular ones look like puppies by comparison." Cynthia grasped her mace tightly and swung it at the nearest leg as she shouted, smashing through the chitin and snapping off a good meter of the appendage.

The Boss reared back and shrieked in pain before leaping to the walls climbing up swiftly and removing itself from the immediate reach of the adventurers, aside from Valerie.

"Spirit of Fire, I beseech thee, bestow thine blessing upon me!" the Mage chanted, beads of sweat gathering on her forehead. "Let your flames devour all that stands before me, unleash the fires of catastrophe! Purifying Breath of Spirit Fire!"

Pointing her staff at the Black Widow, I could feel my jaw drop as, out of fire, a dragon's head formed before her and unleashed pure vermillion flames that engulfed the Boss with a roar. What made it worse was that there was nowhere that the boss could flee to except towards the source of the flames, as Valerie had covered the entire roof with her odd fire.

After maybe thirty seconds, the fire vanished and Valerie slumped to the ground, spent. The Black Widow loomed above the adventurers for a moment before collapsing and falling to the floor…right on top of Damien.

"GYYYYAAAAH!"

"Oh for the love of…Damien, stop messing around." Garret slapped his face in exasperation.

"Who's messing around!?" Damien roared in humiliated fury. "I'm getting squashed by a spider twice the size of a warhorse! Get me out of here!"

"Oh dear…" Cynthia sighed.

It took the priestess and the rogue a good while to pull the heavy Knight out from under the corpse of my poor Black Widow. Valerie was seemingly quite drained by that spell she had just pulled, so spent the time recovering, so by the time Damien was pulled free, she could at least stand on her own.

My Black Widow shimmered and vanished when the Mage touched it, turning into three gold coins, a scroll and a cane with a spider carved into the top of it.

"Val, feel up to a couple if identification spells?" Cynthia asked in concern.

"Yes…I just won't be able to use that spell again today." Valerie answered. Thanks to the Mana-rich environment, my reserves are refilling at a goodly rate. Let's see…this is a Scroll of Venom Bane. It can cure any poison up to the fifth level from one person except the reader. The staff here…is a Cane of the Widowmaker. It is a casting tool that can animate and grow the spider carved onto the tip into a golem to fight on the caster's behalf once a day. Not exactly my kind of thing, but I'll keep it as a backup in case my main one breaks for whatever reason."

Once they were finished healing up and recovering from the boss battle, the four adventurers looked each other in the eyes. It was time for them to decide what to do; advance to my lair or withdraw.

"We in?" Damien asked, flexing his right hand. Despite his armour being restored, it hadn't magically given him a new gauntlet for that arm.

"We've come this far." Garret shrugged.

"In the lady's name, this Demon Lord shall be vanquished." Cynthia stated firmly.

"That makes all of us." Valerie said with a nod.

"OK. Let's go." Damien nodded. "Keep your guard up. We have no idea about what this Demon Lord is like."

With that, I withdrew my mind to my body. That was it, then. All of my monsters were dead, all of my traps sprung and all I had between me and them were a couple of unlocked doors. I made a note that, if I survived this, I was so going to increase the lethality of the traps by a lot.

Doing one last thing before they arrived, I added and then purchased a spider silk and chitin mask from the store. It was a half-face mask and only added a small amount of protection to my face, but I didn't mind. I was going to fight for my life and I was not going to do that without a mask of some description.

Mostly out of habit, mind you, but whatever.

I grasped my sword in one hand and the strap of my buckler in the other as the door creaked open.

It was time to fight.

And I'll end it here. ^_^