15 Kythorn
Nomorespiders. Nomorespiders. Nomorespidersever.
Ettercap lair. We were going slowly so I had time to spot traps. We found tasloi bodies lying on the ground. When there started being lots and lots of traps we knew we had to be close.
"C-could we stop here for the night?" Garrick pleaded. "A yawn is a sile..."
Shar-Teel gave him one of her glares. "No, male. Do any of your songs tell of the fates of adventurers foolish enough to camp on an entrapped ettercap route?"
He shook his head miserably.
"Go ahead until you see their lair's entrance," she told me. "I think we will rest south of here, knowing where to invade at dawn's light. My blade hungers for blood."
I saw a dark patch within the cliffs and three ettercaps around it. I ran back with a giant spider chasing me and we killed it. The casters got to memorize their spells; Shar-Teel kicked me awake early while she had the last watch. She said she liked exercise before slaughter.
We went in, disabling their web traps along the way.
"Reserve the spells, casters," Shar-Teel ordered. "Missile weapon backup. As for you, brat, guard them and try to learn something."
It was so black inside the cave. Then there were many shining ettercap eyes, and Garrick lit a torch he gave to Edwin. Ettercap upon ettercap, with spiders between them. All pressed and packed in together, webs thickly designed to protect them. As though they had expected an attack..
"Step aside, Eddie. I'm clearing a path right now!" The fire Edwin envied scorched out of Imoen's hands, burning through the sticky strands. Enough space for Shar-Teel to fight.
She's amazing to watch. No, amazingly horrible, I mean. (I want to learn how to protect the others like that.) Swinging as widely as possible; with the creatures so close together, she had to make her strikes account for several at once. Seven-in-one-blow.
They surged forward, past her despite her efforts. Some descended from the roof of the cavern. At first it wasn't so difficult to fight them; every time I stabbed, there was something on the end of it. I had no shield, only my shortsword in my other hand. Shar-Teel probably thinks shields are for weaklings.
One of Imoen's arrows embedded itself into the eye of a spider in front of me. I lunged forward to finish the job; poison poured out of its fangs, merging with its black blood. Everything smelt of carrion. You expect blood you've just shed from spiders to be warm, but it's cold; and you don't know whether that's worse or better. It crawls across your skin like a plague of maggots. Then there was an ettercap's claws, rising in defence of the pet. What was truly wrong was when it spoke.
"Prey...meat...badssscent..."
Words in Common. Ettercaps aren't supposed to speak.
"No!" I stabbed into it. I was lucky to find the vulnerable section on its underbelly. I felt it die; another spider took its place. Fangs pierced my wrist before I could do anything. I fought back; grabbed an antidote and drank, while Imoen fired a spell to save me, desperately snatched up my blade again. We kept killing.
"Not bad. Antidote," Shar-Teel said, breathing heavily. The leathers she wore with her armour were ripped and torn; lighter blood than black appeared on her left arm and shoulder; and deep markings striping her tattoos did not seem to be only dirt.
"Our last," Edwin commented.
"We're going down there." Shar-Teel pointed at a hole in the ground, in the middle of the closely-packed corpses. I tried not to think about the blood and the smells of it. "Probably trapped, so—you're first, rogue."
"We're...right behind you," Imoen said. If she hadn't spoken, I'd probably have broken and ran; it might have been better for all of us if we'd done that.
I knelt down and groped, touching more congealing blood. The light touch of a string of spiderweb; sever it quickly with the shortsword. Further down, in those sharp black rocks that anything could jump out of...
"I c-can't...I can't see anything down there yet, but... Ettercaps see better in the dark than humans, I know I've read that somewhere." I twisted the ring I wore. It must have been even worse for the others. I tried not to speak so loudly. "I think I've found all the traps up here so..."
Shar-Teel pushed me in and jumped down behind me. Webbing sprung up when my feet hit the floor; she escaped, I didn't.
So many more ettercaps. She charged into them.
I hate being frozen. I hate being trapped in my body while other people are free to kill me. I hate breathing and staring being the only things it's possible to do when everything else is horrible.
Imoen, mage-lights floating around her head, lowered herself in after Shar-Teel, climbing over me to escape free of the traps. "Gonna get you outta there. Hurry up, Eddie, Garrick!"
"Sshort oness firsst..."
That voice. It wasn't Shar-Teel or any of us speaking. It was something in the back; deep behind the other ettercaps. A bloated female on a roughly-carved throne.
Imoen. An ettercap darted up and hit her, knocking her into the back wall of the cave. Shar-Teel was trying to rush forward, let the casters and archers have their chance like all the strategy texts say, but—too many— Edwin's missiles came down from the roof, at one of the ettercaps fighting Shar-Teel. Two were coming to me, and I couldn't see Imoen any more—
Ettercaps are considered Aberrations, affected by magical entities outside this plane. Therefore, ettercaps' web traps are closer to the wizard spell of the same name than to the webs of natural, finger-sized spiders. These webs are more magical than physical. Because they are magical, they have a stronger effect on the ettercaps' prey. Also because they are magical, there is a small chance of them breaking.
I was lucky that day. The spell-strands relaxed. I ran to Imoen; she was trying to dash and duck from them long enough to defend herself. She was hurt already across her chest and on her arm.
My instructors at home wouldn't have been at all impressed with my random strike. Just hitting out at the closest one to Imoen. But I didn't have to hold them off for long. Her fire spell warned them back.
Kill the short ones first. Statistically, in the history books, spellcasters often cause more total casualties than ordinary fighters. Smart of them to want to kill Imoen and Edwin first. Smart ofettercaps?
Imoen and I ran for Shar-Teel's protection, dodging the webbing. It caught two of the attackers, but there were spiders around us. Poison-danger. Shar-Teel screamed a loud battle-cry.
"Assistance!" I heard Edwin cry. An ettercap was climbing up after him; I tried to get the spiders away so Imoen could shoot a spell to distract it. That must have given him enough time. The one after him dropped and ran, the same with several more around the room: Horror.
Several Imoens appeared in a row, dancing away from the enemies; they all reached for their cloaks.
"Distracted. Gotcha!" One frightened ettercap broke away and started to fight for us. "Two!" She sent a second into his own spiders. "Hurts." Blood on all of the images, staining her pink clothes.
"Imoen..." One of her images melted out of existence; she fumbled, dropping to one knee and rolling away from the spiders chasing her.
Guard the casters.
I flung myself at her; fell through one intangible image, dived down past another two, and found Imoen's blood on my hands. I couldn't stop her bleeding.
"Tymora..." One of her mirror images collapsed. The ettercaps and spiders were running closer. "Tymora, help—Silvanus—" We were doing this for a druid. "Imoen—" There was a lot of blood.
Her eyes opened. "Hey, lemme work here, kiddo." She sat up, feeling for her spell components. It had felt—well, it had felt like Silvanus had actually taken pity on our group and healed her. Like an electric shock striking me from her wound, feeling it close over—(this doesn't mean we have to join him now, does it?). I fought. It just had to be for a spell's duration, only a spell's duration—
Shar-Teel was nearing the ettercap on the thronelike chair. Method in her bloodshed after all. Imoen's spell released with a very bad smell. An ettercap I was fighting fell unconscious, the spell's border at the very edge of my nose.
Silvanus help us.
"You'll stop this."
"Foul—foul human—"
Shar-Teel had reached her goal. Her sword was held to the bloated ettercap's chest: the heavily pregnant ettercap.
"Tell them all to walk into that cloud."
"No—not sssurrender—" A spider attacking me fell back as Shar-Teel became still more of a threat to their queen, the sword beginning to open a cut.
Shar-Teel snapped her fingers in my direction. "Skie! Tell the intelligent ettercap exactly what we came for."
"Me...? I...The scroll!" I said. A scroll fitting Fahrington's description had been placed beside the throne, as though in a place of honour. Shar-Teel was trying to negotiate. That was good. "We came for the scroll that was stolen, so if you let everyone be knocked out then we can all get out of here alive. Please?"
"The ssscroll made by one of the massterss...our greatesst treassure..."
"First, order your servants into the cloud. Second, give us the scroll like she said." Shar-Teel can be terrifying. I wouldn't have said no to her under those circumstances. Or indeed anything other than 'help' or 'aieee'.
The ettercap howled. "Hate you...more children will avenge, hagsss. Lie in the foul air, my children. It sshall not be long."
They all...filed out, into Imoen's cloud. Two were still running from Edwin's fear spell; they eventually found their way into the vapours. Most lay down unconscious immediately.
Shar-Teel tossed me the scroll, keeping her sword pressed to the ettercap's stomach.
"Tell me, girls. Have we completed the nice little charitable adventure for that druidic dungheap?"
Imoen's robes were ruined with blood; her face was pale and dirt-streaked, with deep scratches on her arms and cheeks. I could feel my own cuts and bruises, especially now the fighting had stopped; I wanted to drop my sword and hide away somewhere safe. Down here in the dark, when we'd all been hurt. Not worth it, I guess Shar-Teel wanted us to say.
"Guess so," Imoen said.
"Good. A question: what exactly are you?" Shar-Teel asked her prisoner.
"Tell you nothing, beasst." Intelligent defiance. These creatures—abominations? I doubted Shar-Teel could get more information than that, from their queen.
She shrugged. "Kill them all."
"Treach..." The ettercap could not finish her thought. Shar-Teel sliced open her stomach; she had been pregnant. Half-formed ettercaps in translucent shells, a large litter of them, gushing out of her in a torrent of pale liquid. Some of them were making faint noises, like small kittens—Shar-Teel crushed them under her boots.
"We said we wouldn't kill them—they're unconscious—" I said. Imoen had already drawn her bow.
"What would they do to you in the reverse situation, simian?" Edwin, climbing down from his perch in the cave above. He fired a magical missile into one of the ettercaps trying to stand up. An escaped spider was after Shar-Teel; they would show us no mercy now. I took my own bow from my back. "Personally, though, I find the creation of such clouds most unreliable. Horror is both effective against enemies and has the ability to discriminatorily avoid party members." Another two missiles rose from his hands.
"Shut up, Edwin," Imoen said. One ettercap was screaming, running to us out of the cloud in berserker's rage at our betrayal. I had to shoot it; Shar-Teel stabbed it in the back. We killed them all.
Something that sounded like a rockfall came from behind us. "Are you—are you in danger? Do you need help?"
Garrick had his shortsword drawn, and was looking at the enemies we had already killed. A bit late.
"We have to burn this place," Imoen said, closing her eyes. Talking ettercaps. Monsters. We had to.
Shar-Teel kicked at one of the dead ettercap-babies. "Very well. Raid for treasure, scorch the earth outside first, and let nothing escape."
So—there's nothing alive in that cave any more.
"The imbecile ran the moment he could," Edwin murmured to me, glancing ahead of us at Imoen and Garrick. "I suppose it satisfies your ego to drag along the cowardly swain? It certainly fails to improve the competence of this group." I know how Garrick must have felt.
"Garrick's making his own decisions, and I can't tell him to leave unless Imoen says so," I whispered back. It would be wrong to send him away before she has time to make up her mind. "And I would very much appreciate it if you didn't mock either of them about it."
"If—ah, if Imoen says so?" He sighed. "(Once again it is apparent I am misunderstood and talking utterly at cross-purposes. The mentally deficient constantly defeat themselves through their complete lack of sense.)"
Shar-Teel made Garrick study the scroll, and it turned out it had a curse on it. The only thing we could do was to take it back to Fahrington...
He healed us; when he bent over Imoen, I saw Shar-Teel glaring, watching him carefully.
"Talking ettercaps," Edwin said. "Do explain your excuses for your tawdry scroll...good sir," he added, perhaps remembering the rabid squirrel. His right hand made a slight jerk in the direction of his nether anatomy.
"Yes, you may keep the scroll, adventurers. It will no doubt raise your karma after you laboured so hard to recover it." He went to Shar-Teel, frowning as he tapped her scars. "I see you have been in a good many more battles than the children you lead, lady."
"Children? I am several years the senior of those other infants!" Edwin said, quietly. "(I suppose the ugly and ancient druid envies my robust and glorious youth.)"
"I like to murder men who send me on false quests," Shar-Teel said.
"Oh, well, I find violence very personally distasteful, you know," Fahrington said. "That's why I like to travel out here and commune with the bears; lovely creatures." The growl of a lovely creature sounded, apparently not far from him. "I also dislike getting robbed, so I prefer to make these scrolls for some token comeuppance on the thief filching them." He looked at Imoen and me as he said that sentence. "But the story you have of this group of ettercaps—yes, very strange indeed." He finished Shar-Teel and moved on to me.
"Male, my sword aches for more slaughter."
"Patience, patience," Fahrington said. "You do not need to know these things. Events have concerned myself and my order of late. The death of Osmadi and others in his grove from bandits. The testimony of Corsone the Shadow Druid. You have confirmed certain of my fears, adventurers, and removed one band of enemies from the Sword Coast. It is not beautiful, and it is only truthful as far as I have found, but that is all you need to know. Go with good karma." I felt much better as his healing spell finished.
"Payment for our time?" Shar-Teel demanded.
"Surely—the karma scroll? Ettercap loot?" We had found some cheap jewellery and coin: things that sparkled, that ettercaps collected. "My healing time and resources?" He shook his head. "Greedy adventurers. Here, ten gold pieces and my eternal resentment. Good day."
"Thanks for the heal?" Imoen said; but the druid melted into the forest's shadows as smoothly as water soaking into the ground.
I think... I think human bandits will be better than those spiders.