Page 81 of Queen's Griffon

While Monty wiped the goo, and Simhi snickered, Griff noticed the webbing vibrating. He uttered a low warning, “Incoming.”

The filaments spanning the tunnels left and right of the intersection made it hard to see, but something agitated them. It wasn’t long before they saw the culprits. The first spider apparently hadn’t been full-grown, for the ones now appearing were big. As in, you couldn’t easily stomp them into squishy bits, especially since they scurried upside down overhead.

“Eyes up,” Griff yelled as he began to slash. He didn’t so much aim for the spiders as slice through the webs, clearing some space and making it harder for them to move and hide.

As arachnids hit the floor—and skittered on their many legs—Simhi groaned. “I hate spiders. Especially hairy ones.” Her scimitar flashed as she swung, removing legs and piercing bodies.

Monty yelped as he shook his boot. The spider clinging to it had its fangs sunk into the leather.

A good thing the one Monty had on his head didn’t have a chance to bite because Griff suspected these spiders—much larger versions of the ones he recalled from his youth—did have venom in their fangs. In small doses, it just numbed the spot bitten. But the size of these would have delivered a much larger wallop.

“Die, nasty bugs,” Monty yelled as he whirled and twirled with his sword, a dervish that killed anything that moved. By the time they finished battling, the intersection and hallways were strewn in sticky webbing, spider parts, and gore.

Simhi grimaced as she eyed her feet. “My poor boots. I just bought them, too. Think it will wash off?”

“Why do that when you can use them as a prop when you tell people about the mighty arachnid battle in exchange for free ale,” Monty suggested.

“Should my story include how you screamed like a little girl because one touched you?” she taunted.

“It tried to eat my face,” Monty huffed.

“Bah, it was a baby with barely any fangs.”

Griff let them banter, their way of unwinding after a fight. He used his sword tip to scrape the wall at eye level and noticed something. Labelled arrows. The left one statedAdministration, Reception, and Courtyardwhile the right simply hadLabs.

“If you’re done flirting,” Griff interrupted, “we should get going.”

“Ha, as if I’d waste my charm on him,” Simhi sniffed.

“What charm?” Monty guffawed, to which she slugged him in the gut. A deserving Monty bent over and wheezed.

“You wouldn’t know because I don’t waste it on morons,” Simhi declared before stalking away in the direction Griff indicated.

Monty straightened and grinned before whispering, “I think she likes me.”

Griff’s brow arched. “What makes you say that?”

“I know she can hit harder.”

With that, a whistling Monty followed Simhi. They encountered a few more spider nests on the way and ran into some oversized rats that they dispatched easily. The tunnels branched so many times, Griff could admit to being at a loss as to where to go and where they’d already been. He’d forgotten how many labs existed in Mount Etna. So many, some seemingly useless.

The Culinary Experimental Kitchen where scientists who loved to cook devised new ingredients and methods.

The Agricultural Splicing Laboratory where they tried to create new crops.

The Explosive Testing Chamber, the walls still covered in scorch marks.

The Morgue of Bodily Discovery, where they literally dissected bodies to better understand how it worked.

Some labs proved inaccessible, the tunnels to them blocked with hardened lava. Others had collapsed. Even so, they had many rooms to explore, all of them dusty and long abandoned. It wasn’t until they came across a barricade—right after dealing with a room full of centipedes longer than his arms—that Griff began to feel hope.

“Someone blocked the tunnel,” Griff remarked, eyeing the eclectic mix of items jammed in the space.

“From which side?” Monty observed. “Because could be they wanted to block something beyond.”

“Only one way to find out.” They began to tug at the random junk, tossing it aside: chairs, wadded and decaying fabric, hunks of wood. It didn’t take long to create an opening they could pass through.

Beyond it, nothing. Just another empty tunnel. It almost made Griff sigh. How far and long would they have to search, assuming Avera was even in Mount Etna. Had she made it this far? He had no way of knowing, but if she still sought those rocks, then she would end up here.

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