Chapter 91 BIG SPIDERS! AAAAH!

“We’re under attack!” Marruk bellowed from the wall, where Viv had left her.

“Gods dammit.”

The witch ran and swore, pushing aside the last scrambling villagers making their ways to safety. She saw Ardek the young hunter and Romus the veteran shoot arrow after arrow at something out of sight. The alderman stood nearby, hands clutched around a quarterstaff. Those were the three people in the village who wouldn’t be completely useless. Viv grumbled against everything and everyone on her way up to see what the men were shooting at. She regretted it immediately.

It was… a lot of things. The setting sun cast a red glow on a chittering mass of chitinous flesh, a tide of eight-legged vermin covering the grass and fields in a divine plague. Creatures of all sizes swarmed over the earth and each other on their way to the palissade. In Viv’s eyes, there was no more land, just a sea of legs and thoraxes crashing down on her.

She kind of broke down.

“Aaaaaaaaah ARTHUR! Burn it all! Burn it to the ground! Werfer!”

Dark spells flew across the clearing, mowing down the largest beasts and digging furrows in the tilled earth. An entire section of the swarm disappeared behind the largest blight Viv had ever conjured. The hiss of disintegration soon drowned the clicks of poison-dipped mandibles. Viv went wild and torched the plain with black flame. She even started to draw from her reserves in the knife-focus. At no point had she stopped screaming.

“I will invent the rocket and the rocket fuel and fissile material and I will cleanse this entire fucking patch of greenery out of creation until nothing remains but glassy craters! I will give that den of arachnids the Brazil treatment. I will log the shit out of every acre and use the wood to make toilet paper dispensers for every house on this god-forsaken shitball of a planet. I will ban spiders. Spiders are illegal. Arthur! Napalm this back into the hell it should never have crawled out of!”

“SKRAAAAAA!”

“Leave nothing standing! Yes! Burn it all! Burn it all down aaaaahahahahahahah! Let skies run black and the land be charcoal!”

//Your Grace, they are retreating.

“We need more things to burn!”

//Your Grace, please calm down.

“I will calm down when the crispy shield woods —”

//Now.

//We have company.

The sight of a lone figure in the distance forced Viv to stop indulging in dramatics, even if she felt those were warranted. Black mana devastation and dragonfire scarred the land in great black wounds devoid of any life. The smoke from the dying heat masked parts of the forest and rose to the heavens beyond, but a light breeze had parted enough to show a lithe, definitely female figure swathed in elegant clothes standing in the distance. Spider silk shrouded the trees around her in gossamer swathes like drapes from a palatial canopy. She walked calmly forward and the ground parted before her steps, no, not ground, spiders. As the last rays of the sun hit her, Viv saw that they had found their herald.

From feet to neck, the woman appeared human under a rich green dress. Above, however, the elegant frame gave way to a nightmarish jaw that split her face in two, like a certain movie monster that hunted marines for sports. They twitched erratically every second or so. The rest of the head was mostly unchanged, save for an additional set of dark eyes on the forehead. Viv found that it was rather fucked up and wondered how she would recognize uranium so she could mine it effectively.

“Look what fell into my lap.”

The herald’s voice surprised Viv. She sounded much closer than she really was, a sign of good magical control. As far she knew, Octas was a force of destruction, the wildest of all dark gods. And yet, the herald spoke in a refined alto that would delight an entire cabaret. The greater reaction came from Viv’s companions, however.

“Is that… Leria? Korek’s wife?” The alderman whispered.

“It cannot be…” Romus added. All three villagers showed various expressions of distress. As for Viv, she was curious. She also wanted the herald to keep walking toward her.

“Who are you and what do you want?”

“You already know the answer to those questions, little outlander.”

“You know me?”

“I know of you. My mistress knows many secrets, even some your benefactor hid in his dusty vaults. She sees that you seek to resurrect that which has died, and we object. You cannot fight entropy, girl. Harrak is gone, and soon, you will join it. We will send your reanimated corpse on its way for your friends to find. I might even give it a present.”

The thing hissed. It was a bit far but Viv thought she saw maggot dripping from the nightmarish maw.

“What does the village have to do with it?”

“Silly girl, what do you have to do with the village? It was to be my offering, a mark of my commitment. But now it holds a prize that will grant me many rewards. Even now, I feel my power grow to answer yours. I will see you soon.”

Viv launched the bolt spell she had built up at the herald, but she dodged it with preternatural speed. Great chitinous limbs popped from her back and planted themselves on the ground, sending their load out of the way of the projectile. The herald’s body bobbed between them like a gorged rotten fruit. Viv’s instincts screamed, but before she could react, Marruk pushed her aside and Solfis pinched a spider from the air. Viv saw red marks on a black body and shivered.

//A red hiver.

//It should not be here.

“First blows averted. We shall see who goes the distance.”

When Viv looked up from the tarentula-sized corpse dripping white ichor on the ground, the woman was gone.

“Solfis, I almost forgot but can you go kill the thing?”

//The creature was covered by an invisible network of silk at all times.

//It is prepared and defended against me.

“… What do you mean?”

//Octas must have shared information on me.

//This is a mage killer frame.

//I can resist spells but not god-infused sticky silk.

//I can perceive details through most magical illusion, but this creature does not use its own mana to hide itself.

//It is currently receiving a large amount of energy directly from Octas.

//It might prove too much.

//I will have to ambush it.

“You mean that thing can defeat you?”

//I have no recourse against the silk and net it can produce.

//We need to lure it in and ambush it.

//It will be difficult.

“We killed a prince.”

//We face a god.

//Octas is directly intervening to make sure you die.

“What the fuck?”

//This is a great honor, Your Grace.

//It means that you stand for civilization.

//It must be your revival of Harrakan culture, bathed in blood and glory.

“Or maybe I’m the sucker making mana-absorbing obelisks free of charge.”

//A proper ruler does not neglect any aspect of proper governance.

“So…” a voice interrupted. It was the alderman. Marruk was leaning against the palissade, squishing small spiders as they crossed over it while Romus and Ardek watched a happy Arthur with undisguised terror.

“Who are you exactly?”

//You ask a lot of questions for someone who swore an oath to secrecy.

“Well, yes, your lordship, or whatever it is you preferred to be called… but I already swore so it makes no difference, does it?”

Solfis took a second to reply, which was a second more than what he usually took.

//If you call me your lordship from now on, I may consent to it.

“Enough of this, we need to check on the other villagers. They could be in danger.”

“Lildy set enchantments around my house,” the alderman said.

“Yeah and she’s dead. Let’s go.”

“Lildy is dead?”

Viv did not wait, she jumped down followed by Arthur. The dragonette looked a bit tired but it was the postprandial serotonin discharge kind of tired, and her crimson eyes stared at the distant fire with half-lidded pleasure. They took three steps before Solfis roared a warning and a wave of small spiders jumped at them from behind houses. Viv did not hesitate.”

“Easy Peasy Sneaky Cloaky.”

She needed a shorter incantation. One that didn’t induce cringe.

The spiders jumped on her legs, trying to reach her face and she realized that she did not need to have covered her face as they were annihilated as soon as they landed. It let her see how Arthur handled the mass. The dragonling lifted herself with a flap of her wings, then beat them once. Waves of grey mana burst from them in Viv’s mana vision, pure and perfectly formed. The shockwave both killed the small creatures and gathered them in a neat pile. The witch was forced to avert her eyes so she would not be forced to witness the following insanity.

Thanks

For

Meal

“There…. therecouldbedustinthat!”

Her hasty protest got ignored in favor of a large protein intake.

“I hate everything.”

//Well done, Your Grace.

//No dangerous specimens so far.

“Enough delay!”

Snack

“I don’t want to hear it, let’s go.”

They moved throughout the empty village, squishing spiders with every step. Most of those were harmless to humans, barely more than what she could find in a temperate forest on earth. Sometimes, Solfis stomped forward and plucked a wriggling specimen from the mass. As for Viv, she was practically dancing a constant gig to prevent the things from clinging to her boots.

The strange procession made their way to the central house, which was currently besieged by another tide. Light still emerged from behind closed shutters, so Viv had hope. A large patch of vermin detached itself from the rest as soon as she stepped closer.

//They appear to be aimed for you, Your Grace.

//Fortunately, Octas’ will can only carry so far in simple specimens.

“I feel fucking lucky, yeah.”

This time, Viv traced a circle in the dirt with her dagger and charged it with a minimum of destructive mana. The spiders would walk on it and die, turned to dust in an instant. It was yet another small drain on her rather depleted reserves. More of the spiders found them, a constant trickle crawling their way in a wriggling carpet. Solfis moved to pluck some of the most dangerous creatures while the villagers found fresh torches they used with more enthusiasm than effectiveness. At least, it provided some light. Viv found the darkness unnerving.

It took a good ten minutes before the mass of spiders had gone from movie prop to just a nasty nest. As soon as a threshold was reached, the annoying things just moved aside rather than just erasing their numbers in a suicidal last charge on her circle. It meant that there were always spiders.

The alderman knocked on the sealed door, squishing a pair of orb weavers as he did. Another three had to be wiped off his face before a voice asked who was there. It took some negotiation before the villagers opened the way, and Viv finally breathed a sigh of relief when they finally entered the well-lit home. It was too hot, it stank, but right now it was relatively spiderless and that was all she could hope for.

The villagers had stopped the spiders from getting in by guarding the doors and windows with their shoes out, which explained the smushed stains and the general feet smell. They welcomed the news that they were besieged by dark forces with consternation, but they rejoiced once the alderman sold them Viv as some sort of grand secret archmage and the group left everyone in prayer while they retired upstairs. The alderman distributed some infusion from a sealed container and Viv only checked it once for spiders before she took a sip. it was warm and reinvigorating with a slightly bitter aftertaste.

“Please tell me what happened to Lildy,” the man politely asked.

Viv recounted the discovery and arson, leading to quite a few curses.

“That Leria has lost it, curse the day her mother gave her life. She has always been a bitch, but I didn’t think she would be a murderer too.”

//Tell me about her.

“Solfis? You? Profiling?”

//I now have to conduct the assassination of a godly vessel.

//Some research is required.

//Octas servants are tricky.

//This one’s profile is suboptimal, which will help us.

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“What do you mean?”

//The most effective servants of Octas are violent criminals, typically murderers and arsonists.

//People who revel in violence and destruction.

“That’s not Leria at all,” Romus said. He passed a hand through his trimmed beard.

“She’s arrogant, impatient. She never belonged here. Resented everyone but preferred insults over genuine attacks.”

“Kordek bought a lot of land. He would have become rich in ten years if things had gone well. Could have retired to Losserec-on-the-Lake and lived comfortably until he died fat and white of hair,” the alderman explained.

It sounded like a life goal. Losserec was the capital city of Northern Enoria. The lake was Lake Hydon, a large freshwater body, Viv remembered from her map. They would reach it if everything went well.

“Leria thought she was some sort of great lady. Kordek had to hire old Griswel to take care of things around the house because his missus wouldn’t,” Ardek added, then he blushed when the two older adults glared.

“Apologies milady,” the alderman continued. “We don’t got good manners here, hope you forgive us.”

“That’s fine, but you were saying?”

“Right. Leria was cross about living here. She is the youngest daughter of a rich merchant. Kordek invested the money wisely but she could not wait to get back her living standards.”

“She has a high opinion of herself,” Romus added.

“Not dumb but thinks she’s Sardanal’s gift to mankind. Prettiest and smartest person who knows best on everything all the time,” the alderman added.

“Oh so it’s multiversal then.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Alright Solis, how does this help.”

//Impatience.

//As I mentioned, Leria’s profile is suboptimal.

//The Spider Queen’s gift would have taken over quite quickly, they still may.

//Leria succumbed because she could not wait.

//We must exploit this specific flaw.

//Force her to attack.

“Wouldn’t she attack no matter what?”

//Heralds typically ambush and harass their prey, sacrificing a great many monsters and beasts to wear them down.

//They will attack without stopping and finish with one last assault.

//They do this strategy every time.

//Because… it works.

//Octas can control and direct many monsters, especially spiders.

//That makes her the most dangerous dark god.