Page 9 of The Glass Unicorn: Part 2
I moved to the side. “Be my guest. Somebody hold the light for him.”
Reggie scooted in beside Geoff. “I’ll do it.” He held out his light.
Geoff got down on his hands and knees, examining the first step. He scanned it, then leaned further out, to look at thesecond stair. “Nothing on the first two. You realize this is going to take some time, unlike in our regular games.”
“Nothing’s coming up behind us, so we have plenty of time,” I said.
He was about halfway down the stairs when I heard a noise behind us. “Crap. Thornhold, come with me. The rest of you be ready.”
We slid along the wall, toward the bend where the passage curved. As I came to the edge, I could hear the murmur of voices, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. While Abarria Game Guides was international, they had Live RPG facilities in other countries, and from what I had read, they changed them in each region to match the local regulations and culturally acceptable play.
So, we either had some players from another country, or we had Syms out there. And the Syms could be enemies. I slowly leaned forward, wishing I had my compact. If I did, I could maybe angle it so that I could see who was coming down the hall.
There were no other turnoffs or doors before we had turned the corner, so—unless they turned around now—we were going to have to face them. I decided to be direct. I motioned for Thornhold to follow me as I swung around the corner, bow out and arrow nocked. Thornhold followed, his axe ready.
The moment I saw who they were, I knew we had a fight on our hands. Like a creepy-assed centaur, only with black widow spider bodies and human torsos, the two werespiders were the size of St. Bernards, and they took up the entire width of the hallway.
“Crap,” I turned the bow to the one on of the monsters.
“Gah,” Thornhold said, adjusting his weapon. “Attack?”
“Wait to see what they do. The moment they move toward us, go in swinging.” I held my breath, waiting to see what would happen.
The nearest werespider’s eyes narrowed, and she—she had breasts, mighty impressive ones, so I assumed she was female—held out her hand, an orb of lightening about the size of an orange appearing on her palm.
“That’s all she wrote,” I said, aiming directly at her head and letting the arrow fly.
Simultaneously, she tossed the lightening orb my way and I dropped to the ground. Thornhold raced forward, keeping to his side of the wall, away from the approaching attack. The orb flew over my head, and I could feel the sizzle as it passed. It exploded against the wall behind me, the shockwave jolting me forward a few steps.
“Eat this!” Thornhold shouted, charging down the hallway. An enraged dwarf was a terror to see.
The other werespider scuttled back, his eyes widening. But his partner, the one who had attacked me, let out a hiss as the arrow struck her. It missed its target, but still, hit her in the shoulder, and a trail of blood began to trickle down her shoulder.
She shouted something that sounded like an expletive and raced toward me, her eight jointed legs making a skittering sound on the stone floor.
I shouted for the others to come help us, and took another shot, but the arrow flew wild, and barely grazed the bulbous mass that was her belly.
Now, I was having traumatic flashbacks to dealing with black widows in my childhood home. I had no time to shoulder my bow, so dropped it and grabbed out my dagger—the silver one. I had no idea if the metal would react on her, but it was worth a shot.
Thornhold reached the other spider, who had retrieved a sword from a belt around his naked waist. The creature wasn’t wearing clothes, but he seemed to be wearing the belt to hold things.
He managed to get in a swing before the creature could counterattack. Thornhold was short, but the werespiders weren’t gigantic, so he managed to contact the creature across the chest and his axe resounded with a slice that sounded as bad as it probably felt.
At that moment, Brynn came racing around the corner. She took in everything that was happening and pulled out her sword, racing toward the spider that was approaching me.
“Get back,” she said.
I stepped back, letting her have room to swing the sword. I turned to see Ray, Reggie, and Geoff approaching. “Werespiders,” I said.
Reggie looked horrified, but he pulled out some petals from a little bag around his neck and began whispering over them.
Ray gave me the once-over. “You all right?”
I nodded. “She tried to singe me but I managed to duck. But prepare a healing spell, just in case. Remember, we candiein here now.”
Geoff ducked past, too, his sword out. “Spiders? Crap!” He sounded shaky, but at least he was on his feet and moving.
I managed to grab my bow off of the ground and pulled another arrow out of the quiver. I’d have to restock soon, I thought. I fitted it to the bow, drawing back the string as I aimed toward the spider fighting Thornhold. It was bleeding, but still fighting. I aimed for his head, trying to wait for the right moment. I didn’t want to risk hitting my best buddy.
