Spider

"Off in the northwest of the woods is the territory of the grave spiders. They're giant, no, titanic spiders with a unique venom that melts the innards of their victims before drinking that up for nutrients. When they are young, they burrow into the ground and cover their hole with a trapdoor, using it to ambush anything that passes by. As they grow older, they move on to create webs to trap even larger prey like fully grown griffins. They're extremely aggressive and territorial so it's common sense to give their hunting grounds a wide breadth. They're among the most dangerous animals in the forest."

So Aida had explained and the closer they came to where these spiders were supposedly nested, the more it became apparent how frighteningly vicious these arachnids were. The tops of the trees were intertwined with layers upon layers of webbing. Laid together so thick that anybody could see them with their naked eyes. A few tattered strings of torn apart cocoons hung all around them, these lone threads demonstrating how thin and near invisible the webbing was when they weren't layered. And from the vestiges of the cocoons, Roko could surmise that whatever was inside was taken out. Normally, the cocoons would imply that a creature was being held there, an already captured prey being held for later consumption now missing. From the abundance of such cocoon husks, Roko could tell that the spiders had amassed a good surplus of food all of which were now gone. Of the possible explanations, either they were in an old or abandoned part of their territories, or there was a drop in new prey that they could capture. Or the most likely scenario that Roko was considering; their stock was taken by the tentacle creatures.

"We really need a better name for them." Roko sighed.

"I know right?" Corissa nodded, "I don't suppose there's a proper name for them?"

"If there is one, I wouldn't be told it anyway." Roko scowled.

"Should we make one up?"

"Are you talking about the grave spiders?" Aida asked, confused.

"No, the tentacle monsters."

"Oh." Aida blinked, "Should we name them? Would anybody be mad if we did?"

"Unless we can get them to talk, we can't know what they call themselves so we can call them anything." Roko said, "At any rate, things are going to be extremely dangerous once we head in there." He turned towards the group, "If you want to stay here instead, you can. Whenever what awaits us in there are spiders or tentacle monster galore, we're not going to get out unscathed. I won't blame you if you decide to head back now."

"Well, I'm certainly coming along." Corissa replied immediately, "I can't just duck out of this adventure now and let you and Varis handle it."

"Varis can stay back with you, I'm not going to force anybody to come with me."

"Wait, that means you'd be going in there all by yourself!" Corissa cried, "Are you crazy?!"

"I'll make do." Roko shrugged.

"I can't leave you alone for a moment." Corissa sighed, "I'm coming and that's that."

Corissa slyly turned her eyes towards Aida who was standing there, unbowed.

"There's nowhere left for me to return to." Aida replied, "There's no village left and whenever we succeed or not, this forest is done for, at least for a few years. If there's anything I can do to set things right again, I'm going to do it."

"That's fine." Roko nodded, "Then...in we go."

The more Roko saw of the spider's territory, the more he was impressed. There were webs spun together so thickly that they formed walls between trees, stopping them from moving freely. And in between those were thin, invisible webs that caught onto unsuspecting prey. There were tripwires that seemed to drop webs from the ceiling as well and even trapdoors that dropped into a startling deep pit. It was like a natural dungeon in the middle of a forest. At least, that's what it seemed as every single one of these traps had been tripped and left in tatters. No matter where they went and where they looked, these well laid traps were all triggered and the only thing left were the corpses of the tentacle monsters, left along the side of the roads in irregular intervals. It was clear that there was no strategical attack that took these spiders by surprise. The eldritch creatures just filled every nook and cranny of this hunting ground, set off every trap they could and still overwhelmed the spiders with sheer numbers. Quality, strategy and preservation. None of these seemed to matter to these creatures. If Roko was in command of a similar army, he doubted he would need to strategize much either.

"Is there an end to this?" Corissa asked, the unnerving surroundings eating at her courage.

"Well, from the looks of things, we don't have to worry about any traps at least." Roko said, "The entire hunting ground's been ravaged. So we shou-"

"Stop." Aida suddenly put an arm out in front of Roko, stopping him from moving forward.

"What's wrong?" Roko asked.

Aida reached down and slid the tips of her fingers into the earth, pulling up and revealing a camouflaged cover to a rather large hole.

"W-Whoa!" Corissa cried as she came over to look, "You almost stepped on that."

"It's usually strong enough to withstand a few people walking over it." Aida said, "Though at this range, you probably would have gotten ambushed already if there was any thing in here."

"I can't really see what's inside." Roko squinted at the darkness, "Does anyone have a light?"

"Oh, hold on." Corissa pulled out her phone and tapped through it before it began to project a light into the hole.

Inside was an immense mass of tentacle creatures, lying face-down in a heap everywhere. None of them moved or reacted to the light, in fact nothing in the hole seemed to be alive. The only thing left of the trap's inhabitant was the tip of a single spider leg, stretched out in a failed attempt to escape the monsters that had fully smothered it.

Corrisa cried out in horror and her body jolted, letting the phone slip from her fingers. Roko reacted as quick as he could, grabbing the phone in midair but throwing his body forward into the hole. With his remaining hand, he grabbed onto the lip of the hole, managing to stop himself from falling inside.

"Roko!" Corissa cried as quickly rushed to try and pull him up. With Varis' help, they managed to pull Roko back out of the hole and closed the lid to the trapdoor.

"Oh my gosh, Roko, I'm so sorry!" Corissa cried as she hugged Roko's head, "I didn't mean to drop it!"

"Of course you didn't." Roko said as he held up Corissa's phone, "Just try not to do it again."

"Y-Yes sir." Corissa sniffed as she took the phone from Roko.

"Are you sure we should have brought her along?" Aida sighed, "She seems pretty defenseless."

Corissa yelped in sad protest but Roko stood up and said, "She's not someone who has seen a lot of combat but having someone to survey and relay changes in the battlefield is valuable against so many enemies. In order to do that, the strategist has to be safe and Varis will make sure of that."

Aida looked unconvinced but Corissa looked touched and happy.

"Let's keep going." Roko sighed, "It's clear that this area has been overrun already. There's very likely a pillar to check. With some luck, it could be the one we need."

It wasn't long until Roko and the group came across a cave. A gigantic cave, befitting of the giant creatures that were supposedly living in it. But as they neared its entrance it was clear that the ones that now resided in it were not the spiders. Webs were spread across the ceiling and walls, thick ones that formed many dens along the ground. They approached carefully but soon discovered that these dens were empty, devoid of any corpses or monsters. Along the ground ran a green liquid that almost seemed like it was glowing. It was trickling down and out of the cave slowly, it's unnatural color drawing everyone's attention to it.

"What is this?" Corissa asked.

"I don't know." Aida frowned, "I don't think I've seen green water before."

"Well, there's one way to find out." Roko said, "Analyze."

Venom

HP: N/A

MP: N/A

Attack: 5

Defense: N/A

A stream of venom that has been exposed to outside environment for a long time. It's effects have long since stagnated and is no longer hazardous, though various harmful bacteria remain in its liquid enough that it is not advisable to make contact with it.

"It's poison." Roko reported.

"THIS is poison?" Aida frowned as she reached out to touch the liquid.

"Don't touch it." Roko said sternly, "I don't suppose this is natural for these grave spiders?"

"To release streams of their digestive poison onto the ground like that?" Aida scoffed, "Yeah, that doesn't seem right."

"What's going on?" Corissa gulped.

"The answer lies further in." Roko sighed.

The group continued to step deeper into the cave, following the streams of poison until the streams became large, slow flowing rivers. As the sunlight began to disappear, they brought out and lit torches but now that they've gone so deep, Roko could tell that the poison was giving off some sort of glow which was unnerving. Before long, the tunnel opened up into a giant cavern, this one also filled with webbing and structures but at long last, they came across the creeping tentacles that marked the domain of the eldritch. And standing in the back of the cavern was...something that could be described as a pillar. Tentacles did converge together to build up into a stem but at the very top, the structure bloated into a giant sphere, larger than a human and almost reaching the top of the cavern. In the center of it seemed to be some sort of green gem and from the lower parts of the sphere, green venom was pouring out seemingly endlessly and collected in a small pool before it overflowed onto the ground, forming the two rivers they had been following.

"What the hell is this?" Aida's tiny body shuddered, "This is completely different from all the other nests."

"That's all poison isn't it?" Corissa said, unnerved, "What's it doing?"

"...Perhaps..." Roko thought aloud, "Perhaps it's trying to utilize the poison."

"How so?"

"This poison also serves to melt and digest material. How exactly these corpses are turned into monsters is still unknown but perhaps there's some part of this poison that they could be using to accelerate it? Or...maybe they just can't process the poison and is trying to dump it out? But if this is the case, why is there so much poison? There can't possibly be that much poison in a cluster of spiders..."

"This is great and all but what are we going to actually do?" Aida sighed.

"Well the first thing to do is to decide whenever or not that pillar has a book." Roko replied.

"So we're going to step into the poison after all?" Aida grimaced, "That doesn't look pleasant."

"Not necessarily." Roko said as he stepped forward.

"Huh?"

"Analyze."

Greater Pillar

HP: 100%

MP: N/A

Attack: 0

Defense: 70

A pillar processing the unique poison of the grave spiders. Though it's not able to convert such a hazardous liquid to new bodies quite yet, it does seem to be able to use the venom's natural ability to break down materials to further their conversion of corpses. At the top of the pillar stem is a book.

"Jackpot." Roko smiled slyly, "We found the book."

"Really?!" Corissa cried, "Wow, on our second try! As expected of Roko!"

"I don't know why people have these expectations of me." Roko muttered as he rubbed his eyes.

"To be fair, I just met you and I am half surprised and half not surprised because it's you." Aida shrugged.

"In any case." Roko sighed, "The problem now is that the pillar is in a pool full of poison. It will be extremely difficult to get to it. We still don't really know the effects this poison can have on us so I would like to avoid touching it but how to do that, I-"

"Can we dump them into the trapholes over there?" Aida pointed towards a collection of covered holes off to the side. Both sides of the caverns seemed to have a collection of lids made of mostly rock but some foliage from outside was added in enough for these traps to stand out among the cave floors. With a nod, the team stepped over the river of venom to one of the lids. With a nervous nod, the group opened the lid to the trap.

Inside was a mess of corpses, some spiders, some tentacles but including some other beasts. Griffins, dire wolves, perytons, even giant bulls were left at the bottom along with other indistinguishable creatures. Even some human remains were down at the bottom of the hole submerged like everything else in green poison.

"So is THIS usual?" Roko asked.

"What? N-No, I..." Aida squinted down at the disgusting underground contents, "I think...this is a storage pit. Grave spiders are known to create or reuse their old trap holes to store prey that they don't plan on eating yet. I don't know why there's poison down there, that doesn't make any sense."

"Then my only guess is that the poison sacs for these spiders were ruptured when they died and filled the hole when they were thrown in here."

"That explains the trap holes." Corissa turned towards the pillar again, "But what about that?"

"…There's a chance we could empty out the pool into these holes if we dig some trenches." Roko mused, "The problem is how much we can get away with modifying the cave before we trigger the monsters."

"Are you sure there's monsters here?" Corissa asked, "I haven't seen any live ones."

"Given that the book is here, I'd say there's no chance that there aren't any around." Roko shook his head, "But they're ambush predators. They wait until you either let down your guard or start messing with them or their domain. The moment we make a move on the book is the moment they come out of hiding and attack us."

"So what are our options?" Aida asked.

"We can either move quickly-"

"In that poison?" Corissa frowned, "Either we brave the poison or we drain the poison. One is too dangerous and the other is too slow."

"...or prepare in advance." Roko finished.

"Prepare?" Aida looked befuddled, "How?"

"Well, we have the chance to form a defensive front to better hold off the eventual waves." Roko nodded, "At the very least, we can better defend you two."

"I can fight." Aida frowned.

"Against how many enemies?"

"..."

"So for how to form a defensive, the best way is to form up against a wall." Roko continued, "Using Varis' ice magic, we can create a clam shell sort of defense where there is only a small opening where they can get through. Form an ice wall overhead to prevent attacks from above and create a line of spikes poking outward to deter attackers. Angle it upward to force them to climb on top of each other in order to climb over. Keep the angle flat enough that they can't just slide down to us and have to run across. The longer you can make it, the better. That should suffice for defenses so as for how to handle cutting into the pillar..."

"Can't we just blast it with some magic?" Aida rolled her eyes.

"...You know what, let's give it a try." Roko said, "Varis, hit it."

Varis fired a bolt of lightning that burned a small hole into it before it was dissipated, rather harshly.

At once, the sounds of skittering and growling began to break out all around them as monsters emerged from between the shadows of the webs. Dozens of them began dropping from the ceiling right above them.

"Keep them safe for me." Roko removed the sword from the side of his backpack and tossed it to Varis. Varis just nodded as he caught the backpack and picked up Corissa.

"What?!" Corissa cried as Varis also picked up Aida by the scruff of her neck and jumped to one of the walls, "Dammit, Roko! Not aga-"

Roko just waved good bye as monsters landed all around him. Roko drew his sword and kept the sheath in his hand to repel the monsters that collected around him as he began charging through the growing army. Thankfully, most of the creatures seemed to be trying to storm the icy fortress that Varis had already set up, exactly as Roko had suggested. As the monsters ran past him, Roko could noticed a small string of smoke emitting from each of the creatures.

"Curse?" Roko muttered, "A wide spread curse for each individual creature to constantly damage them and draw their attention to its caster? What a ridiculous way to essentially taunt the enemies. Still, just when you think you got a handle on how powerful Varis is, he turns out to be surprisingly intelligent as well."

And surprisingly considerate for someone of his intimidating presence. Though Roko suppose he already knew that. Thanks to Varis' distraction, Roko was able to make his way to the pool of poison relatively unharmed.

"Still..." Roko paused as he stared at the clear green liquid.

Part of him was fully ready to plunge leg deep into the aged poison but another part of him that claimed to be smarter was holding him back. With a scowl, Roko pulled back and looked around for some way to beat the pond of poison. His eyes flashed back to the trapdoors and an idea came to mind. He ran towards one, leaping over the stream of river in his way as monsters chased him down. He grabbed onto the lid of one of the trapdoor and jumped around to the other side. Roko held onto the cover as the monsters closed in on him. And once they began to make lunges for him, Roko raised the trapdoor, blocking their attack as they slammed against the well made natural lid and fell into the poisoned hole. As the monsters tripped over themselves trying to stop themselves in time, Roko slashed the end of the cover that was attached to the ground, pulling the top off completely. Pulling his arm back, Roko flung the flat object over the head of the monsters like a frisbee. The cover soared through the air, much better than Roko expected, until it landed in front of the pillar and began floating atop the hazardous substance.

"That's step one." Roko said as he took a deep breath.

Taking a few steps back, he leaped across the open hole, cutting past the monsters that were circling around the same hole to try to get to him. As Roko landed on the other side he kicked one foot out, landing the first attack on an unsuspecting tentacle monster and kicking him and a one or two monsters into each other. Lining these monsters that were now stuck together vertically, Roko stomped down and like Varis, he stomped through the three of them into halves. Wasting no time, Roko returned to slashing his way through the pandemonium until he returned to the pool and jumped onto the lid. The cover wibbled and wavered, some poison spilling onto the top but otherwise managed to hold his weight up. Looking back, Roko could see the monsters that were chasing him climbing and snapping at him from the lip of the pool. They could jump at him, Roko knew they were perfectly capable of launching themselves close to this distance but they didn't seem to be interested in pursuing him into the middle of the poison. Pushing at the ground with his sheath, Roko drew himself closer to the pillar and steadied himself for what came next. Roko stabbed his blade into the pillar and began tearing and cutting and ripping his way into the disturbing structure. He worked as quick as he could, before any of the monsters could work up the courage to attack him. Having now gained some experience in dismantling pillars, Roko easily broke into the empty core and turned his head upward to find the book. Even in the low light, Roko could see the book had seemingly regenerated a small part of itself. In particular, the book's blackened cover had begun to clear and reveal a green tint to it. Roko reached out to grab it but a squelching and squishing sound began to sound from the roof of the pillar. The tendrils behind the book suddenly opened up and the book was sucked up into the circular dome atop the pillar. At the same time, more poison began to pour down from the top and Roko had to quickly pull his head out before any of it could touch him. The poison poured out of the opening that Roko had made and began to pour on top of his platform. Fear drove Roko to react fast as he turned and jumped off the drowning cover and threw himself back on solid ground. While he was able to tumble to safety, the tentacle monsters swarmed around his hunched body and quickly began to overwhelm him.