Descent Into Darkness

Hurriedly, Eidiri parted the weeds before him, his eyes peering out from the tall grasses.

A wondrous, yet horrific sight graced his eyes, from the edges of the forest that he had been traversing through lay an overgrown path.

Alongside this path was a rusted minecart system, some of the weathered minecarts still resting there in disuse, still filled with ore.

Then the path winded down sharply, slowly leading downwards to this enormous pit that just lay there in the middle of it all.

This was the Caverns of Laroshia, and it was practically teeming with spiders.

Thick cobwebs spanned across the area, filling the air, making it practically impenetrable.

From what Eidiri could see from over the cliff face, the place truly was overrun, in his head, he was hoping that he would be able to sneak past some of the spiders and simply grab the ores from the carts.

However, when this thought popped up, he immediately shut it down, seeing as this was a dungeon location, he would naturally have to explore it.

Worst comes to worst, he would simply respawn with marginal losses.

However, in any case, he had to make sure to obtain a set of ores for Jarid. Even if he died, he could just treat it as a slightly expensive teleport to finish the quest faster.

Before he entered the open dungeon though, he made sure to do some preliminary scouting of the place, trying to find out things like locations of mobs, exits/entrances, patterns, etc.

In terms of the Spiderling's behavior, they were mostly sedentary, not really moving too much, just staying in their webs, waiting for some hapless prey to wander in.

There was a small group of 5 surrounding the ore carts near, according to Jarid's knowledge, the miner's camp.

The webs they had crafted had completely enshrouded the carts, making it so that if Eidiri wanted to get to the ores, he would have to get past the Spiderlings first.

After identifying this problem of his, Eidiri slowly crept down the path, taking care to not touch the webs the cut through the air.

At times he would have to jerk backward to avoid hitting some webs, the ultra-thin strands almost entirely invisible unless you were directly in front of them.

To an outsider, Eidiri would look like some sort of drunk trying to perform an odd set of dance moves, but that info is impertinent.

After descending the ramp, Eidiri confidently strolled up to webs that were surrounding the ores.

Now while such actions may seem like suicide, spiders have innate poor eyesight.

This naturally means that this can be abused.

While Eidiri wasn't entirely sure if this knowledge would transfer from reality to the game, he was willing to take a small gamble.

Striding up to the spiderwebs, he simply took out his knife and cut the webs.

Without the webs, the spiders would have a much harder time fighting him.

This kind of spiderling relied mostly on its victims tiring themselves out with their futile thrashes in its webbing. From then on, they would descend like vultures and finish off the kill.

Without their webbing, the combat ability of the spiders would be effectively cut down.

Most of the time, after the webbing was removed, the spider would choose to flee the scene, unwilling to fight with the loss of its carefully constructed trap.

However, in this case, after Eidiri cut through the webbing with his dagger, the spiders boldly charged forward despite the loss of their traps.

Despite the loss of their webs, they weren't completely powerless, as a matter of fact, they still possessed a quite deadly means of combat.

Their fangs carried a potentially dangerous neurotoxin that would paralyze the victim.

This spider who had had its web brutalized hopped down and started to rush towards Eidiri.

Seeing this, Eidiri simply lifted his boot and stomped it into the ground. A slight could of dust was sent flying into the air as the innards of the spiderling spilled out.

The vitality/constitution wasn't particularly high, such stats were reserved for the matriarchs of the Spiderlings.

After this spiderling suffered a swift death, Eidiri turned his attention to the other webs, taking Steel Song and cutting them all down.

With this, the vibrations of the webs wouldn't alert any others and the combat potential of these spiderlings would nosedive.

The other four spiderlings then, despite bearing witness to their comrade's brutal murder, rushing forward as well.

Well, not exactly. The sight that occurred would instill fear upon those with arachnophobia, some of the spiders crawled hurriedly on the floor charging towards Eidiri, yes.

However, 2 of the spiders decided to simply climb up the ceiling and scurry along from there.

With the spiderlings splitting into 2 groups, Eidiri also naturally had to split his attention.

If he focused too much on the spiderlings that were on the ground, then the spiders on the ceiling would just simply drop down and devour him.

However, if he devoted his attention to the ones on the ceiling, he would waste his energy being unable to hit them and eventually die in a battle of attrition.

If he wanted to be successful, he had to do something to break their formation, and fast.

After a brief moment of deliberation, Eidiri muttered to himself, "Ah screw it," and charged into the spiderlings advancing towards him on the ground.

It was time to exploit the advantage of his naturally superior eyesight. Yay.

Despite his own visibility being atrocious in the dark, the spiders were even worse off, seeing as they normally relied on vibrations to get information on the world around them.

With this, Eidiri simply circled around the advancing spiderlings and speedily stabbed 1 through the abdomen.

Its legs splayed out in its death throes and some yellow liquid akin to pus spurted from its wound.

Temporarily ignoring the vulgarity of the situation, Eidiri pressed on, severing the leg of the one to his right.

But surprisingly, this did little to deter the beast, and it advanced towards his location in a frenzy, looking for revenge for its fallen limb.

At this, the rest of the other spiders also converged on his location, alerted by the vibrations caused by his quick assassination.

A little spooked from how the spider missing the leg was still moving, Eidiri shakily stabbed his dagger forward, immediately jumping back afterward.

His thrust had stabbed through the head of the injured spider, cleanly finishing it off. The dodge back had allowed him to dodge the venomous fangs that were going to pierce him from the left.

There were only 3 spiders left now, but they had now all assembled before him.

The 2 from the ceiling had jumped down now, attempting to land on his head and back, trying to go for a swift paralysis.

After they had paralyzed him, they would wrap him up in their threads and then slowly drain him of his blood, leaving him as a shriveled husk that would be swiftly disposed of.

However, Eidiri was not idle in their attempt, and he kicked the one charging him on the ground away before shaking his body wildly, trying to throw off the spiders that were now on him.

Now rather than immediately going for the takedown, the Spiderlings had to struggle to stay latched onto Eidiri.

Then Eidiri did something drastic, he reached behind him, grabbing one of the spider's legs before flinging it away.

Then as the other spider went to bite him, the armor that he had obtained prior in the Fereling Woods encounter protected him, the fangs unable to pierce through.

With the combat ability of this spiderling effectively reduced to nothing, Eidiri was free to leisurely take care of it, grabbing it like its predecessor, flinging it onto the ground, and then stabbing it.

He stabbed the other one that was on the ground too, and then went to the one that was crumpled in a heap on the ground, bending over to finished it off with a dagger.

However, when he knelt down to finish the kill, the spider leaped up from its previous 'dead' posture, making it evidently apparent that it had been faking its demise.

The fangs were clearly outstretched for his palm, and Eidiri was helpless to the situation, they easily pierced his palm and the toxin was dispensed.

Seeing this urgent situation, Eidiri took his other arm, and fiercely stabbed the spiderling who had dared to orchestrate this performance.