Although Bjorn had mostly understood the theory behind what they were doing, and how the various alchemical components would interact before, now he understood on a whole new level. After obtaining the skill levels and the expertise from the master alchemist Jen his conversation with Skarit was on a whole new level. There were technical questions that he had never even thought to ask before that seemed logical to him. He had essentially tripled his theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge overnight.

  Needless to say, Skarit was a little suspicious. But Bjorn played his new found understanding off to just having a few days to think. It was clear that his answer didn’t fool Skarit, but it did placate him enough.

  When they moved on to the more practical part of their work Bjorn now knew better. Skarit was no fool, he had worked with Bjorn over the last week, he knew his skills. So when they were doing more experimentation Bjorn intentionally messed up. Intrinsically there was something that had fundamentally changed with how Bjorn worked thanks to the skill book. His movements came naturally to him now. Even though the movements made sense, and he knew what he had to do, there still was a slight disconnect as his body did things without him having to think about it.

  The two of them were working side by side on their newest set of tests when Bjorn had an idea. “So far we have had success in strengthening the venom, but we are still having a hard time getting it to work on the spider's exo-skeleton. Why don’t we try using some different parts from the spider?”

  “We already tried that. The stomach, web, liver, even parts of their brains, remember? Still nothing had any effect.”

  “Well. We did just get a new part of the spider's life cycle. One we didn’t have access to before.”

  Understanding dawned on the runic’s face. “I think I get what you are getting at. It is possible, but I don’t know how much of a difference a young spider will make.”

  “You only partly understand what I am implying. But let’s explore your suggestion first. It is common in young venomous animals for their bites to be more dangerous than the adult ones. For some it is not understanding how to fully control how much venom to inject to kill their prey. For others it is that their venom is actually more potent. The only issue with collecting venom from babies is getting enough to be usable.”

  “Yes, go on.”

  “So that is an option. But what I was getting at is that when we popped the spider eggs there was a thick almost mucusy liquid inside. My thought process is that the spiders use that liquid to mature from an embryo to a baby. Depending on the properties of that liquid they could absorb it through their mouths, but my guess is they absorb the liquid to grow through their exo-skeleton.”

  “And if they absorb it through their exo-skeleton.” Skarit picked up where Bjorn let off so that he could draw a breath. “Then that means that the liquid has the ability to get through the exo-skeleton. If we find the right proportions to use that liquid we might even be able to make the venom interact with the exo-skeleton. Effectively nullifying their immunity to their own venom.” As Skarit finished Bjorn’s thought excitement started to creep into his voice.

  “Exactly.” Bjorn said almost smugly.

  “I was able to convince a few squads to save me a few eggs, figuring they might be useful later on. Let's go and test your theory.”

  Together Skarit and Bjorn made their way through the boxes piled high with herbs and alchemical ingredients. At the back of their storage there was a large crate that when opened was piled high with unruptured spider eggs. Bjorn gingerly picked one out of the crate, spider embryo slowly twitching inside of the egg.

  Bjorn wrinkled his nose at the sight of the movement. “That is rather unpleasant.” Bjorn observed.

  “Yeah, I find it disconcerting as well, I am not entirely sure as to why.”

  “Why isn’t it dead yet?”

  “You know, I don’t know, it should have died by now. Given it being moved but who knows. I can’t imagine this being the proper environment for the spider inside to grow.”

  Bjorn sighed. “Well might as well get it over with.” He pulled out a small glass bowl and held the egg over it. Grasping the surprisingly supple and springy egg with each hand he made the same motion you would when you cracked an egg into a bowl. The thin membrane popped as his fingernail dug into the soft flesh of the egg. The thick mucus-like liquid came pouring out of the puncture and most of it ended up slashing into the bottom of the bowl. A portion of it stuck to his hands and started to run down his forearms. The spider embryo fell out with the gushing liquid and lay twitching in the bottom of the bowl.

  “If I was a weaker man I might have puked at that sight.” Skarit commented looking at Bjorn’s forearms as they dripped fluid.

  “Did that make you a little queasy?” Bjorn asked as he fished the pale white spider's corpse out of the bottom of the bowl.

  “Yeah a bit. But I should be alright.”

  With a wicked grin Bjorn picked up the bowl and took a drink of the liquid. It had the consistency of a booger, so he had to briefly chew the liquid before he swallowed. The taste was ultimately not bad, but the texture was horrible. Still he powered through it, hiding his disgust well.

  When he looked at Skarit the man looked pale. He had quickly retrieved a bucket and was in the process of losing his lunch. The sight of the runic puking just made Bjorn’s smile even wider.

  “Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad. Besides, it isn't anywhere as bad as you getting me to eat that kidney stone.”

  As soon as the puking subsided Skarit raised his head in defiance about to retort. His eyes fell on where Bjorn was standing over him. Bjorn had used the same dagger that he used to pick out the spider and he had gotten some of the liquid on the tip of the dagger. There was a long strand of the liquid dangling off the end. Bjorn had positioned the dangling bit over his mouth in such a way that it looked like he was eating it to the runic.

  This visage brought on another bout of puking. When he finished puking he dared another glance at Bjorn, who had taken a seat on one of the crates. He was just sitting there watching the man in his agony. “That was a dick move.” Skarit said.

  “Suck it up buttercup. Payback is a bitch isn’t it? Besides that still wasn’t as bad as the kidney stone and you did just fine then. Maybe you shouldn’t have tricked me into eating one of those damn things.”

  Skarit pushed himself from a kneeling position into a seated one with his back to one of the crates. “I see your point, and I heard you. I probably shouldn’t have tricked you into eating that thing. Do you have any water?”

  Bjorn threw a water skin over to him. Skarit popped the cork on the end and proceeded to wash his mouth out with the water. Then he drank some of it. “So, what did you learn about its uses? Will it help us brew the poison?”

  At the mention of his perk Bjorn’s smile turned from an evil grin to one of joy. “I think it will. Although I have never seen something like this.”

  You have consumed embryonic fluid of the snatcher spider. As you are not a snatcher spider it has no effect on you. If this fluid was consumed by a snatcher spider it’s growth rate will increase. You get the feeling that this fluid could be used in brewing a spider bane poison.

  “It has no effect on me, and it can be used to increase the growth rate of snatcher spiders. But I think that tidbit was a part of the item description. What is weird is that it only gave me one use for alchemical potions, when it normally gives two. So that means one of two things to me. Either the increased growth rate counted as one of my two uses. Or it means that the fluid only had one potential use.”

  “So are you going to tell me the use or not?” Skarit asked, for the first time his voice had a hint of irritation in it.

  Bjorn's smile beamed again. “I guess I should. It is used in a spider bane poison. That plus the venom of the snatcher spiders gives me hope that we are finally on the right track. At the very least we have narrowed down two potential ingredients that should give us a good starting point.”

  Skarit got to his feet and picked up the bucket. “I’ll be back in a while, I need to take care of this.” He held up the bucket. “Don’t expect me back too soon, I need to go for a walk.”

  “Oh is someone salty that I got payback for a cruel joke?”

  Skarit just did a hand gesture that Bjorn interpreted as giving him ‘the bird.’ “Yeah he is salty.” Bjorn said to no one in particular. He looked back at the crate full of spider eggs and sighed. “Might as well get this over with.” He thought to himself as he walked over to the crate and picked out another one of the spider eggs. He set to cracking them open one at a time and letting its fluid flow down into the bowl.

  For the most part the spider embryo was underdeveloped enough that they would die as soon as they hit the bottom of the bowl. Every once and a while though the spiders would live when he cracked the egg. Almost every time he did so the spider would end up catching onto his hand and begin to crawl down his arm in an attempt to get away.

  So far his arachnophobia was mostly cleared up. It was hard to get afraid of small spiders when he had been fighting great dane sized spiders for several weeks now. Even still, when a palm sized spider started to crawl down his arm as fast as the new born could, it spooked a person. Each time a spider was alive it gave Bjorn a small fright and he quickly brushed the spider off as fast as he could, he would then either crush it with his boot if it fell to the floor. Or stab it with his dagger if the spider landed on the table. He was quite proud of himself as he didn’t let a single spider escape alive.

  When the bowl would get near to the top with its liquid Bjorn would pick up a large glass decanter that could hold up to 250 doses of a potion and carefully transfer the liquid inside. It was surprisingly easy to fill the decanters. The liquid inside would cling to itself each time he would start to pour and would transfer just nicely into the wide mouths of the decanter. When all was said and done he had filled 3 and a half of the large bottles.

  After he finished processing both of the crates of eggs Skarit still hadn’t returned, so Bjorn decided to just hop on and help out the alchemists brew their potions. It was a never ending task brewing health and stamina potions for a large army like the one they were a part of. They were never able to produce enough. They seemed to go through the potions just as fast if not faster than they could produce them.

  His new found proficiency was quite amazing. Tasks that he had to actively pay attention to now he could do them passively. Things just came easy to him now. Many of the other alchemists noticed Bjorn’s change. Instead of being suspicious, many of them chalked it up to Bjorn working with Skarit. He worked with the alchemists until Skarit came back.

  “Are you finally ready to get to work?” Bjorn teased.

  “Yes. Let’s get to work.”

  Together the two of them talked about the first test they would like to run. Together they started running through different permutations and combinations of ingredients, quantities, and times they were mixed together. All the while they were using some of the embryonic fluid and some of the venom they had collected. It was still a slow process though, as each permutation and combination they tested took hours at a time to get a positive result or a negative one.

  Each time they made a new concoction they would test it on three different mediums. The first one was some humanoid bone that they had been given. It was one of the upsides to working in an army camp. There were tons of bone fragments from the field hospital that could be used for their tests. They also tested each of their new iterations on the spider exo-skeleton to see its effects. The last one they tested on was a simple piece of the black rock that was ever present in their surroundings. Skarit thought that the practice was completely useless, but Bjorn insisted that they had to have a ‘control group.’ Whatever that meant.

  After another day of failures they called it a night and went their separate ways. Agreeing to meet up early in the morning the next day. When the morning came they found themselves standing around the table that they used for their test specimens. There were a total of 12 bones that they had used yesterday for their tests. 6 of which were humanoid bones, the other 6 were small segments that they pulled off of adult snatcher spiders.

  All 6 of the humanoid bone fragments had turned into a puddle of calcium and phosphorus. There was no discernable change to the spider segments. Disheartened, Bjorn began clearing the table. When he picked up the third segment it felt like his hand gripped nothing. The usual rigid structure of the bone-like exo-skeleton turned brittle and crumbled in his hand as soon as he applied a little pressure.

  It took a second for it to sink in. When it finally did, Bjorn hooted. “Woohoo! It worked! Kind of. But it still worked!” In his excitement Bjorn threw his arms around Skarit and patted him on the back while hugging the man.

  Skarit couldn’t help but smile at the jubilation that Bjorn had shown. “Don’t get ahead of yourself now. There are still a lot of things to test. Currently it works on both our bones and the exo-skeletons. We still have a ways to go. I want to make it so that it only affects the exo-skeleton. On top of that we don’t know how long it took for it to make the carapace brittle. Not a very good poison if it takes 6 hours for it to do its job. Kind of defeats the purpose of us trying to figure out a poison when it would be completely useless to our soldiers.”

  “Spoil sport. Can’t you just be excited that we had our first real success in almost a week of trying.”

  “I’ll admit that it is quite impressive that we found a potential solution so soon. But we still have a lot of iteration that we need to do.”

  Bjorn stuck his tongue out at Skarit. “Can’t you let yourself have a little joy?”

  “No, I can’t. We don’t know that this potential solution will actually lead to our end goal. If I allow myself to hope then I will be crushed when this ends up being a false solution. So no, I don’t want to let myself hope. I advise you to do the same. You are young and impulsive, you haven’t had the time and experience to fully learn the truth of the world.”

  “Well with that glum outlook on life, I am going to go and test this new combination at 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30% venom content.” Bjorn turned around and walked over to their small brewing station.

  The next morning a runner boy came hurtling into their shared tent. “Alaric, Rickie, Tayla, Bjorn, or Meira. Are any one of you any of the ones that I listed?

  Everyone but Tayla was present in the tent. “Um, yeah.” Bjorn said. “We are most of everyone you listed. What can I do for you?”

  The flustered boy held out a letter “New orders.”

  Bjorn grabbed the letter out of the kid's hand. “Thank you. You are free to go.”

  He gave his best salute which left a little to be desired. After the boy left the tent roughly in the same way he entered it, stumbling and moving a little too fast for his own good.

  Bjorn just shook his head at the all too serious kid. He opened up the letter and read.

  “Tomorrow at midday we will be assaulting the next room. By our best guesses there will be two more rooms for us to assault after this one. We are hoping to be finished soon. Duke Dornan is still recovering from his use of magic. So he will not be joining in on this assault. He likely won't join the next one either. He will be saving his strength for the final push to wipe out the snatcher spiders. Be prepared for a tough fight. Assemble at our designated assembly point tomorrow at 15:30.”

  Bjorn filled the others in on the content of the letter. They all started doing their own preparations. Meira went to the hospital to help them prepare for the influx of soldiers that they would likely soon get. Alaric went to the forges to retrieve all of their gear. Rickie left for the mess as every night before the next assault the camp would make an extravagant meal, and all rationing was removed just for the meal. Bjorn left to meet up with Skarit.

  Everything and everywhere in camp was a flurry of activity as everyone started to make their last minute preparations. The alchemy center was no different. By the time Bjorn got there the word had spread that the army was going to assault the next cavern tomorrow. Normally there were around 10 alchemists all working around the clock to prepare for the next assault. Now there were over 25 alchemists all crammed into the same small space. There was no down time as everyone was busy with all the hundreds of small tasks necessary to brew on this scale.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “It’s about time you showed your face.” Skarit said when Bjorn walked into the alchemical center.

  “You know how it is, I just needed to get my beauty sleep in.”

  He scoffed. “Why? It isn’t doing you any good?”

  Bjorn turned slowly towards Skarit. There have been few things that have been consistent between Earth and The Eld. Apparently talking shit was one of those universal things.

  “Ha, ha funny.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Anyways. We had a few more successes. The arrowroot, venom, fluid, and pulverized kidney stone combination shows some promise. With our limited time, I think we should try a few iterations today. If there are any decent successes I will try and make some more of it tonight.”

  “Tonight? Do you not join the army?”

  The runic shook his head. “No, I do not. My skills are here, I am not a fighter. Honestly if I was the venture a guess you are likely a higher level than I am. Either way, if you aren’t a higher level than I am, you would win in a straight up fight for sure.”

  “Yeah but I doubt it would be a straight up fight. You would likely fight dirty, and I think you have a few tricks up your sleeve.”

  “That I do, but the point still stands. I would for sure avoid that fight. Even with my tricks and advantages I would still most likely lose. No, my place is here, brewing potions so that fools like you can go and risk your lives for idiots like me.”

  From there they started to talk shop about their alchemy. They began brewing more poison and testing all the various variations that they produced. As it was getting late Skarit forced Bjorn to go back to his tent so he could get a good night's rest before the next fight. Bjorn promised he would stop by first thing in the morning before he left to get anything that Skarit was able to make.

  The next morning the camp was somehow extremely loud and eerily quiet at the same time. The sound of thousands of people preparing for war was quite loud and filled the silence that was let by those getting ready. Almost no one talked while they were getting ready. The silence permeated every corner of the camp. Everyone felt the apprehension and worry that had settled over the camp. The news of Duke Durnan not partaking in the battle had most of the army worried. It was easier to be brave when you had such a powerful ally on your side.

  Bjorn got up early and started to don his armor. Soon he was joined by Tayla, then Meira, then Alaric, then lastly Rickie. Although Rickie didn’t have much he needed to do to suit up for the fight. So he just sat on the edge of the bed, his mind wherever, but not present.

  Once she was finished Meira walked over to Bjorn and began helping him lace his armor onto his body. She was able to slide into her tight leathers easily. Bjorn tried to keep his mind out of the gutter, but the closeness of her in rather form fitting armor was hard to ignore, it was quite distracting.

  After she finished tying the last knot her hands lingered briefly on his metal clad chest. “I am tired of this.”

  Bjorn met her eyes. “Same, I wish we could leave.”

  Alaric cleared his throat. “We are all in here you know. Get a room.”

  Embarrassed, Meira dropped her hands from Bjorn’s chest and took a step back, her cheeks showing a faint sign of pink.

  Bjorn cleared his throat. “I will see you guys at the rally point. I am going to stop by and see if we had any luck on the poison front last night.” He turned around walking out of the tent. What he didn’t see was the slight disappointment in Meira’s eyes.

  He made his way through the camp not at a fast pace or a leisurely pace. He still had a few hours to kill before he was required to form up for battle. When he showed up the camp was just as busy as it was yesterday. Only this time there was a group of 10 soldiers who were picking up crates full of potions that they were able to brew over the last few days, and loading them onto a small hand pulled wagon. It was nowhere near enough to supply the entire army, but it was enough for each officer to get a few. It was up to them from there to decide what they wanted to do with their ration of potions.

  He spotted Skarit talking to a staff sergeant, if Bjorn was able to guess based on the man's attire. “Ah, I was hoping to see you before the battle today. I will be with you in a moment. Do you mind helping load up some of the crates?” He didn’t wait for a response and returned to talking to the staff sergeant.

  Bjorn not even rankled by the none to subtle command did as he was asked to. Even though Skarit and Bjorn had become friends who were close enough to tease one another. The chain of command was clear in this situation. Skarit was a high ranking alchemist, and a professed one to boot. While Bjorn was still a rather unremarkable alchemist by any standards that someone who wasn’t versed in the craft would use.

  By the time he was done helping the soldier's load up the crates Skarit was finishing up his conversation with the staff sergeant. “-ow if you want more potions for the next attack you will need to convince Gram that I need more herbs.”

  “Yes I get that, but there aren’t many more to give. We have already raided most of the stockpile of herbs that our herbalists have been able to collect. We also have requisitioned almost every single herb that the apothecaries carry. We have had to resort to sending people out of the city to forage for herbs to keep up with the demand.”

  “We have a decent stockpile here already, but I see within 5 days that we will run out of materials that we can use. If that happens we will be at a standstill.”

  The sergeant sighed a weary sigh. “I will see what I can do. For the time being I need you to continue work as you have been up to this point.”

  “Will do, sir.” The runic did a rather sloppy salute. It was rather obvious to anyone who saw that he didn’t really understand military decorum. “Bjorn, would you come over here please? I have something to show you.”

  “Of course.” Bjorn walked over to Skarit walking right past the staff sergeant as he started to order his men to head out. “What good news do you have for me? You have to have something right?”

  “Kind of, kind of not. Let me show you.” Bjorn followed over to the same table that their test subjects had sat on the days prior. On the table sat the usual layout of bones. Sitting at the base of each of the different test subjects sat a vial filled with an almost translucent purple liquid. Bjorn picked one up holding it in between his fingers. To Skarit it looked like Bjorn was taking a closer look at the liquid inside. But in reality he was using the distraction to use his identify Ability on it.

  “Does it work?”

  “By my tests kind of, but not really. If it has been applied directly to the bones of the spider it will slowly eat away at the exo-skeleton, but it won’t do it fast enough to have any real lasting effect. The other issue I ran into while testing is that if it is applied to a weapon the poison will slowly eat away at the weapon all the same.”

  Bjorn looked at all of the vials on the table and used his ability on each and every one of them. All 5 of the poison filled vials worked almost the exact same as the one in his hand. “The venom of the spiders is fast acting, why does this one actually work slower than the base venom we started with?”

  “You know, I think it has something to do with the embryonic fluid. I think due to letting it affect the snatcher spiders the trade off is the strength. We just need to find something that will work as an accelerant. I will take the slow sunder damage that it currently does, seeing how it still has an effect. That to me is better than nothing, and it tells me that we are on the right path.”

  “So if I am understanding what you are saying, you have no idea.”

  “Pretty much yeah.”

  “Glad we can be honest with each other.” Bjorn said. “Well this is better than nothing. I’ll take this with me to test out.” Bjorn turned to walk away when something in what Skarit said jogged a memory lose. “Wait. You said something about an accelerant. What was that again?”

  “Yeah, If we had some sort of herb that would greatly increase the rate at which the poison is applied I think that would be all that we would need.”

  There was something that Bjorn had no idea how he remembered. But when Jen was muttering to herself as she was brewing her cure to the monster she made. “Now if I use a pinch of windenberry that should deliver the effects faster.” Of all of the muttering that Bjorn recalled, that one seemed to potentially apply here.

  “What about windenberry? Would that be of use here?” Bjorn asked.

  Skarit frowned. “I don’t know. Windenberry is a common plant around here, it is usually used for an afternoon snack. I don’t think it has many alchemical uses.”

  “The person who taught me how to be an alchemist talked about the alchemical uses of the windenberry. She told me that it could be used in the right conditions when mixed with the root of the arrowroot plant and in the right way it could be used as an accelerant.” Bjorn lied

  Skarit gave Bjorn a skeptical look. “I don’t know about that, but it is worth a shot. How long will that take?”

  “Hopefully a few hours, if I do everything right.” Together the pair started following the steps that he dug up from the memory of Jen the master alchemist. Bjorn started making the paste that would be added to the poison all the while teaching Skarit the process as well. Pretty soon it became apparent that they might just run out of time.

  It soon became a race against the clock. Bjorn misjudged how long it would take to make the paste properly. Instead of leaving them with plenty of time before Bjorn had to be pulled away, they would likely finish in time, but it would be a close call. When it looked like they were actually going to not finish in time one of Skarit’s perks came in clutch and saved them almost an hour.

  With their completed paste Bjorn took a small dollop of it and added it to the vial of poison that he was going to take to test. From there Bjorn re-corked the vial and began to vigorously shake it, hopefully mixing the two alchemical components. After a minute the paste was starting to break down, after three it was starting to mix. After 5 minutes of fully shaking the vial of poison the dollop of paste fully dissolved and the vial changed colors. It changed from a clear liquid to a pale yellow liquid.

  Congratulations you have made a new poison recipe. You and Skarit have both played an almost equally important part in the creation of this poison. Extra progress has been gained.

  You have advanced your skill level in alchemy, reaching skill level 39. Potions you make will have 39% increased effect and 78% increased duration of effect.

  “It worked!” Bjorn half exclaimed and half laughed. “The poison is still considered a weak variant but it will work!”

  Skarit gave Bjorn a side eye. “How do you know?”

  Bjorn’s good mood couldn’t be dampened by him basically admitting one of his 3 abilities. “That is a secret. But it doesn’t matter, it worked.” he looked at the clock at the edge of his vision. The time was currently 15:20 “Shit! I got to go. I am going to take this and test it. Wish me luck.”

  “Stay safe!” The runic called out as Bjorn ran off.

  Bjorn quickly ran through the camp dodging and weaving in between all of the bodies hustling to wherever they were supposed to be. Bjorn made it to the clearing with barely two minutes to spare. When he burst into the clearing he could easily and quickly tell that he was the last one to make it.

  “Recruit Bjorn. It is nice of you to join us.” Sergeant Tommin called out to Bjorn as he fell into formation. Tommin’s voice didn’t really hold any malice or contempt. During the last assault he had proved his worth, and Tommin got a better sense of who Bjorn was as a person. He knew that Bjorn was almost late for probably a good reason, especially since the rest of his party would have made sure he was there on time.

  “Of course sir. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Bjorn called back. Which elicited a few good natured laughs from his fellow soldiers.

  Alaric leaned over from where he was standing next to Bjorn. “Was it worth it?” He asked in a quiet tone.

  “I think so. I think we developed a poison that will work great. The only issue is that we have only 1 dose. So I am not sure if I should apply it to my sword or to some arrows.”

  “Arrows.” Alaric replied without any hesitation at all in his voice. “You are a better archer and you do more damage with your arrows.”

  Bjorn nodded and pulled his new vial of poison from his bag of holding and uncorked it. He then started pulling the heavy arrows that he got back with Jenkins and applied the poison to the arrowtips one at a time. As it turned out the vial of poison went just as far as the hits. He was able to poison 35 arrows with the liquid in the vial. He was very careful while poisoning the arrows. He would slowly pour the poison on the tip of the arrow while constantly identifying it. Once its status gained a poisoned tag he would stop applying the liquid and then store it.

  The entire process took around 10 minutes to complete. One thing that he learned through crafting poison was that the efficacy of the poison would slowly drop away. Another amazing part of his bag of holding was that it was able to stop that process. Apparently the line of folding space and time was more literal than Bjorn expected. The portable pocket had a delaying process, but it never stopped the passing of time on an object fully.

  Not with the bag of holding, it was able to fully stop the passing of time on objects. So the arrows that he poisoned would be just as fresh when he retrieved them, as they were when the stored them. Being able to call up freshly poisoned arrows at a thought would be a great boon in this next engagement.

  A few minutes after Bjorn finished his little project it was time for their unit to move out. During the entire poisoning process the army had finished forming up and began marching through the tunnel a few units at a time. It took a while to organize and move the 1800 troops that would partake in this engagement. The remaining 100 combat ready troops would be left behind to defend their campsite, and their newly taken room.

  As he marched down the tunnel surrounded by hundreds of competent fighters Bjorn once again felt invincible. Only time would tell if that was truly the case. When they made it into the large cavern which had almost been the death of Bjorn and his friends, 300 of the army branched off and started to head down the tunnel which led to their other recently taken cavern, the one filled with the ruins of an old town. Their task was to reinforce the 100 that had already been stationed at the guard post.

  The remaining 1500 began the slow advance down the tunnel. The way that the army was set up was in 100 soldier units. They could walk 20 abreast as they walked down the tunnel. So each unit was able to fill out 5 ranks. They would then make their way down the tunnel with 30 feet between the back of the first unit and the front of the second unit. This was to help protect against any missed traps or set off traps.

  Each unit was given the freedom to form up however they wanted. Gram trusted each of his sergeants and gave them that freedom. He believed that they knew their men the best. Most units were melee fighter heavy. With a few ranged fighters in the back. It was usually a 90-10 split. Tommin’s unit was weird as he had more ranged fighters than most, he also had two spell casters in Bjorn and Meira, while most units had 1 if they were lucky. This made their unit a powerful support unit.

  Because of their utility they placed 9th out of the 15 units that made up the army. Their job when they broke into the cavern was to see where the army was struggling the best and then go there and provide the support they would sorely be needing.

  As they traveled down the tunnel Tommin formed a war party.

  You have been affected by the aura of an allied war leader. You gain an extra 5% movement speed, and you also gain 5% increased damage to your non-melee attacks.

  The last time they fought Tommin had formed his war party and Bjorn had learned about his aura. He also learned that the auras are not a static thing. Tommin’s aura had a drastically different effect than Jenkins did. He also just learned that war leader's auras could change. As the last time he was affected by Tommin’s aura the 5% damage increase was not there last time. When Bjorn had tried to learn more about the war leader skill he hit stone wall after stone wall. Not many in the army knew how it worked, and those who did know wouldn’t share.

  You have been affected by the aura of an allied war leader. You gain 20% to all damage, 20% increased effect of your armor, 10% less mana drain, 15% less stamina drain, an increase of 25% to your fighting spirit.

  That would be gram’s aura. Bjorn also learned over the last combat that aura’s from war leaders could stack. He still wasn’t sure if buffs of the same type would be able to stack. But he will be able to test that today thanks to Tommin.

  You have been invited to War leader Tommin’s war party. Would you like to join? Yes/No?

  Bjorn mentally clicked yes, and the now familiar changes to his HUD happened. When Bjorn started to pursue who all made it into Tommin’s war party another prompt popped up.

  War leader Tommin had offered a promotion to you. Would you like to take on the role of scout? Yes/No?

  Once again Bjorn clicked yes and the familiar symbol appeared right next to his name. He wasn’t the only one who had it either. The soldier that Tommin put in charge of the other scout group also had the symbol. That was how Bjorn learned that multiple people could have the same role. Also Tommin’s war party had a maximum of 25 members rather than Jenkins 10.

  “I figured you proved yourself a few days ago. I can trust you to do a good job here as well. Make me proud.” Tommin’s voice echoed in Bjorn’s head.

  They traveled forward for a few extra minutes when the sounds of combat could be heard from the front. Fortunately Gram’s own personal unit was the first unit. Right behind him was the one who had the best scouting skills. They were there the support Gram.

  In the last fight Bjorn briefly saw Gram, and the man was a monster. He apparently gained a talent from his profession which allowed him to grow in size and in power. It unfortunately made him a larger target for the spiders. But the gained size and strength was worth the trade off. Gram was almost 8 and a half feet tall in his normal proportions. When his talent was active he grew to nearly 11 feet tall and grew almost half as wide. He was well over 5 feet wide at the shoulders.

  He was a one man wrecking ball. He fought with a massive war hammer which he swung around with ease. Each time his hammerhead fell a spider died. He also must have gained a talent that allowed him to at least ignore a portion of the snatcher spider's venom because his larger frame made it easier for them to bite him. Yet it seemed like he shrugged it off. His gear also seemed to be enchanted to fit him specifically as when he grew the armor he wore grew to match his larger frame without compromising his defenses. His weapon even grew in size to match his increased stature.

  To match Gram each and every one of the soldiers who were in his fighting unit were some sort of professed fighter in some form shape or manner. They were no slouches either, they had to be impressive themselves, or they wouldn’t be able to support the walking siege engine that was Gram.

  After the sounds of battle could be heard their progress forward slowed to a crawl. They had orders to maintain the 30 feet in between each unit to avoid any nasty surprises that the spiders were able to cook up. Their progress forward turned from a brisk pace to a few feet every minute.

  Once combat was engaged the majority of the second and third unit had the task of clearing the spider's bodies allowing them to progress forward. Each step forward they took the soldier filed past karting spider bodies. Once they cleared the last ranks of the fighting men there were empty wagons that their task was to safely take the bodies out of the way so they wouldn’t hinder the armies progress forward.

  Soon the slow press forward turned into a normal walk forward, then a light jog. “Get ready!” Tommin called out. “The front of the army has broken through into the chamber, we will make it shortly.”

  True to his word they soon found themselves in a large cave filled all the way to the ceiling with thick strands of spider webbing. In several patches there were flames already licking at the thick sticky silk. All throughout the webbing spiders ran every which way, trying to get to the fire, moving eggs away, or attacking the army attacking the spiders.