Cavern Combat

Eidiri swung wildly, viciously slashing apart the spiderlings that approached him.

Their green bodily fluids splattered through the sir, splashing onto his face and armor.

He swung and swung, occasionally he launched a Fiery Fist to ward off any enemies when his weapon hand was preoccupied.

Seeing that Eidiri had gone in by himself, Ken and Edgar could only sigh to themselves before jumping in with him.

They couldn't let him die alone after all.

Edgar swung opted to use his short sword, slashing and hacking his way into the spiderlings. Soon enough a small path had been carved.

Ken followed up behind him, handling any of the spiderlings that got too close to their flank and rear, covering the push forward.

Ken lashed with his dagger, going for cheap shots to incapacitate the spiderlings, although killing them would remove the threat altogether perhaps incapacitating them would be more useful, their still alive bodies serving as some sort of barrier.

As they continued moving forwards and more and more spiderlings fell to their blades, they came to a shocking realization.

However, this shock, while intensely mortifying, was also a brief reprieve for the group.

As the pile of bodies grew, some of the spiderlings that were pursuing them abandoned the chase, opting to devour their fallen comrades' corpses instead.

Their fangs would pierce through the dark carapace, spurts of dark-green body bursting out.

Sometimes the victim would still be alive, most likely a spider that Ken had taken care of, and the cruelty of these monsters was on full display as they devoured the still alive spiderling, its many legs thrashing in protest.

However, Eidiri and crew didn't have the time required to process such thoughts, only able to gratefully accept this brief distraction and dispose of the ones still chasing them.

They continued forwards into the chamber, Eidiri telling them to look for a more easily defendable location.

As they scurried around frantically, Ken spotted a stalagmite, one quite similar to the stalactite that Eidiri had used before as a lever.

However, before switching the lever, he consulted with the other 2.

"Hey guys, I found another lever. This could lead to a possible escape route, but the deal is that it might lead to another scenario like this, with this bloody mess of mobs for us to deal with," Ken said.

"At this point, I say screw man. We're probably going to die anyway, we don't really have a choice. Let's just take this risk, if it helps us then great, if it's bad then oh well it was going to happen anyways," Eidiri said.

Adding in his own thoughts, Edgar simply bobbed his head in agreement with Eidiri.

With the consent of his party members, Ken went ahead and flipped the lever, the rapid scurrying on the walls and ceiling behind them signaling that the spiderlings had finished with their meal.

As Ken flipped the lever, another wall parted before them, all 3 of them moving to block the spiderling's advance to buy time for the wall to finish moving.

Thankfully enough, no additional monsters or traps charged out from the hidden tunnel. However, it didn't help them either.

Therefore, their only choice was to step forward and make their defense.

"We'll cover each other," Eidiri said. "Just take these bastards down."

Knowing that they would have to take a stand here, Eidiri stepped forward and starting laying out a plan, "We'll try to kite them. Edgar will be the focal point here. Try to make it a battle of attrition," he said, "Edgar will use his poison dagger to deal DOT, we'll kite them out as a group when they get too close to us Ken and I will fend 'em off."

"The main thing here is to keep Edgar safe," this was all Eidiri had time left to say before the oncoming tide of spiderlings had swept onto them.

They started moving as a group in a circle, outpacing the spiderlings, Edgar occasionally taking thrusts forwards and applying poison stacks onto the spiderlings.

When spiderlings jumped down from the ceiling, Ken and Eidiri worked together to deal with them, swiftly handling the matter before returning to protect Edgar.

"There's one above to your right Ken," Eidiri would say.

"Yea I've got it," Ken replied before rushing over and cleanly stabbing it.

They were doing quite well for the little numbers that they had, but 3 people were far too little to handle such a large number of monsters without any sort of injury.

Every time Edgar turned around to damage one of the spiderlings he would put his own life at risk, willingly going into the clutches of death before backing out again.

However not every time he went to deal damage did he come out unscathed.

The plunging fangs would graze him from time to time, and Edgar's health slowly leaked out.

Every time they successfully damaged any of the group, the spiderlings would get more excited, their bloodlust growing even more intense.

17 spiderlings had already been eliminated, but even still there were many scurrying legs, all of them cluttering for their flesh.

Every time they dispatched another one though, some spiderlings would deviate from the main storyline and go to completing the side quest of devouring the flesh of their kin.

This gave a small moment of rest as 3 to 4 spiderlings would go away and feast on fresh blood and meat.

Eidiri and Ken dutifully maintained their role as the guards, but nevertheless, Edgar's health trickled out as the combat continued.

Despite them initially intending to fight a war of attrition they would still come out as losing side if it continued like this.

"Help! I'm getting low here. Can I get a temp. swap here?" Edgar asked.

"I'll go," Eidiri said, "Ken top him up would you?"

Ken tossed Edgar a piece of meat that he had completed before the dungeon adventure, slowly recovering his health.

Now contrary to what they had agreed upon before, Eidiri dived into the swarming mass each swing of his blades connecting and biting into their flesh.

They had to do something drastic, this kiting approach while having initial success, obviously not working too well now.

As such, as if a ferocious berserker, the only sight of Eidiri left was him ripping into flesh and he raised Steel Song above his head, ignoring the pain and damage being dealt to him, intending to finish this matter already.