It was several hours after they all awoke that the friend group found themselves standing in formation with hundreds of others. For this final engagement the army had been split nearly in half. Each half of the army was stationed at one of the two entrances into the spider's domain. This side consisted of some of the stronger units the army had, while the other side had Gram and his unit, which in this fight included Duke Dornan.
Silence was heavy in the field as everyone stood ready to fight and maybe die for their home. It wasn’t the silence of fear, or even the silence of worry. This silence was one of resolute determination that no matter what they faced today the spiders would be wiped out by the end of the day.
Tommin’s unit was stationed near the middle of the pack once again. And once again their orders were to help out wherever they were needed the most.
The space they occupied was barely wide enough to fit the unit if they stood 20 people wide and 5 ranks deep. Bjorn stood shoulder to shoulder with Meira on one side and Tayla on the other. Alaric and Rickie were positioned forward in their unit's formation. The job would be to help protect the more vulnerable ranged units further back in the unit, as well as to help hold the front line of their unit.
A warm hand slipped into his from his right side as he stood at attention. It was Meira. Bjorn snuck a quick glance at her face and he saw no fear or worry on it. She stood there stoically. Her hand told a different story though. Within his grasp Bjorn could feel her hand was cold, clammy, sweaty, and trembling. To help reassure her he gave it a reassuring squeeze. When he did so he felt the trembling lessen a bit, and he saw her posture relax a bit out of the corner of his eye.
What surprised him was that on the other side Tayla also slipped her hand into his. Her hand was steady, and radiated a pleasant heat. Just as he had done for Meira, Tayla gave Bjorn’s hand a reassuring squeeze.
There was a world of communication that happened between the three of them with those two simple squeezes. And through that communication he helped settle all of their nerves. Through it all it helped remind each of them that they weren’t alone, and no matter what happened they would face this fight together.
It was half an hour past midday when the order came through that it was time to move out. So slowly they started to creep forward. There were two mages that were attached to each army that had access to a spell called whisper. It was a powerful spell that could be used for communication over great distances.
The way that the spell worked was the two mages had to link their arms and both cast the spell at the same time. Once that was complete they were now linked and could talk to each other through a soft whisper as long as they remained less than a mile away from each other. It seemed to work regardless of what lay between the linked people. Once they became even an inch over a mile away from each other the link would break and they would have to meet back up to recast the spell. They were not able to tell how far away from one another they were though, so it was difficult to gauge that distance. The link lasted for 2 hours.
That link was what they were waiting for, once both mages had cast the spell and were situated with the different armies they were able to communicate Gram’s orders to the second army.
Not trusting the spiders whatsoever they made their way forward slowly. At the front of each army there was a professed ranger whose entire purpose was to spot any sort of trap or ambush the spiders had set up to attempt to stop the advance of the armies. Their heightened perception and sharper vision made them the perfect people for the job at hand. They were taking no chances as they slowly made their way forward through the tunnel.
Each time they came across a trap they would communicate back and the army would stop, and retreat around 30 to 40 feet. Then someone who specialized in trap disarming would come forward and set about making the tunnel safe to traverse again. Each time the ranger would spot a trap they would also communicate to the mage, who would then communicate to the other army that their advancement was slowed because of a trap. Then the second army would stop in their tracks and prepare for an ambush while the other army cleared their way. Once the all clear was called the progress would start once again.
That is why it took several hours for the army to travel a little less than a quarter mile, each tunnel had been riddled with spider traps. Regardless, the army pushed onwards, wanting to put an end to this conflict.
Underneath Blackrock bay they had built an extensive sewer system that continued to grow as places had outlived their usefulness and new areas were dug and built. Underneath the sewer system was a rather extensive system of underground caves. So when they first came down here to fight the spiders it was in the sewer system. By now they had made it to the underground caves. Their camp was in one such cave.
This made the tunnels in between the caves unpredictable. They were not the neatly cut smooth faced walls that had made up the sewer system. These tunnels also grew and shrunk with size as they made their way forward. After the quarter mile the tunnel they had to travel down was close to 5 yards across, where for the most part it was close to 15. The way forward also continued to shrink going from 5 yards to 6 feet.
To be included with the different widths of the rooms the heights also varied widely. Sometimes the ceilings were well over 20 feet above their heads, and in other parts the ceilings were less than 8 feet up.
It was because of these variations that the ranger had failed to see the first ambush. Hidden in one of the tall narrow sections was a group of spiders. Once a number of the force had made it through that part they dropped down in the middle of their ranks causing chaos as their fangs clamped down on the necks and heads of unsuspecting soldiers.
In a matter of seconds several of their army died as the spider's natural venom did its work quickly eating away at the bone in the surrounding area they bit. It would have spread further if not for the quick reactions of those around the attack. After weeks of battle their reaction times had been honed and they quickly snapped into action. The 10 spiders that dropped among them quickly lost their lives. But not before they claimed a dozen lives. It marked the first time since they started this war that the spiders had killed more humanoids than they had lost.
Gram had decided to not take any chances today. He left behind only those who would be mostly useless in this fight, that amounted to roughly 50 people who were tasked to stop any spiders from attacking the camp. Of the 1600 remaining troops 800 had been stationed in each army. Although it was a sizable force, there was no telling what they would face when they found the final lair. As such each lost life decreased their chances at winning this battle.
Still even with the 12 that were killed they still had to press on. Attendants were quickly brought up and they cleared away both the dead humanoids and the spiders. After which they pressed on, this time everyone was a little more mindful of the ceiling and walls around them. The entire cave was riddled with stalagmites and stalactites, obscuring vision around some corners, each time they came across a corner they weren’t able to fully see they would stop and search it fully before continuing. That is how they found two more ambushes that were failures.
It was another hour before the tunnel narrowed enough that only two people would be able to cross at once. The tunnel looked like it narrowed for only a few feet before widening out. On the other side they were able to see thick strands of spider web.
Once they found their entrance to the tunnel they stood there waiting for Gram’s army to make it into position. It was unnerving standing there, knowing that they were likely not even a hundred feet from hundreds if not thousands of spiders, and it being quiet. They stood there for over 15 minutes while waiting for the go ahead by Gram, and during that waiting period there was no sign whatsoever of any spider.
After the all clear was given the ranger brought out a specially made arrow and sighted down the shaft, he pulled the string back and let loose. As the arrow left the bow the tip of the arrow sparked to life, igniting the tip and bright flames started to lick the air as it flew through the air. The arrow shot into the room illuminating the other side.
The darkness quickly parted as the flaming arrow caught the thick webbing on fire as it flew forward. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. The phrase, the calm before the storm, was never more true than it was today. The calm had well and truly been broken as on the other side hundreds of spiders all flew into action. It was almost impossible to tell exactly what was happening as the spiders did several different things all at once. Between moving to cut away the burning web, and moving eggs away, and moving towards the attackers, it was almost mesmerizing seeing hundreds of spiders crawling over each other to accomplish their task.
The call to move forward also came through not a second later, and people began to filter into the bottleneck to try and get into the fight. It was slow going as 800 people tried to funnel down into the opening that was wide enough to only let two people through all at once. Luckily it wasn’t as slow as it could have been, for a few reasons. One of those reasons was the gradual sloping on this side of the bottleneck, it caused most of the humanoids to be in a position where they would naturally be 2 wide anyways. The second reason was the opening on the other side. Once through the opening, it opened up into a massive underground cavern, making it so that they wouldn’t bunch up at the entrance to the cavern.
They very quickly established a foothold, and continued to grow that foothold. Quickly making room for more of the army to funnel through. This tactically was a double edged sword. It allowed them to deploy their forces rather quickly, but in the case of a retreat would almost slow down their retreat. Making a retreat likely cost them hundreds of lives, if not all 800 of their ranks.
When Bjorn made it through with Meira and Tayla he got a good view of the cavern they were fighting in. It had massive vaulted ceilings almost a hundred of feet above their heads. By this time one of the mages from Gram’s unit who specialized in light magic had cast a spell and a large orb floated above their heads in the middle of the room illuminating the entire cave. And the sight brought chills to Bjorn’s spine.
Hundreds of spiders were crawling through the webs above their heads, making them have to fight in two different areas. There were those scuttling towards them over the ground, but then the ones who were crawling along the webs to get at the humanoids as well. It would be ultimately very difficult to defend.
To further complicate the matter of their fight, the second cave entrance came out on a natural walkway that had worn into the side of the cave slowly sloping down to the cavern floor. This opened Gram’s army up to a third avenue of attack, below them. The walkway jutted out a good 20 feet into the cavern and the edge of the walkway was rounded, where the stone sloped back and met up with the wall.
The spiders were taking full advantage of their avenues of attack. They were hammering Gram’s army from the front, the side, the top, and from below. Countless spiders were clinging to the under hang waiting for a chance to reach up and grab ahold of someone to pull them down into the webs or let them plummet to their deaths. Occasionally a web would shoot out from above grabbing ahold of someone, if their neighbors weren’t fast enough they would be pulled from their ranks and up into the mass of spiders.
After Tommin’s full unit made it through fully he made a decision. He very quickly and effectively broke his front line soldiers into two different sized groups. The larger one had around 2/3rds of his melee warriors, those he sent to help reinforce the units that came through first. The smaller force was tasked with defending their ranged fighters. He then ordered his ranged fighters to turn and attack the walkway below Gram’s army. His goal was to weaken or lessen the impact they were having on the other half of their forces.
Luckily for Bjorn he was able to restock on arrows before this battle. With the magical properties of his bag he was able to store hundreds of the blunt tipped arrows that were effective against the spiders. Making him a walking supply depo. He ended up carrying the extra arrows for all of the bow and crossbow fighters for his unit, of which there were 16 of them.
They all gathered around where Bjorn was standing and he pulled out a bundle of arrows and one of bolts. Each bundle held at least 100 arrows, he set them on the ground and them retrieved his own bow. He then sighted at the spiders and began to pepper the wall with arrows. Volley after volley of arrows and bolts streaked away from their force and slammed into the walls where the spiders were harassing Gram’s army. Soon other units began to join in on the carnage though only half of them did. The other half of the ranged fighters kept sending arrows up and into the spiders that were above their heads as they tried to close in and drop down in the midst of the fight.
Tommin’s call of splitting his melee fighters into two units ended up being the right call. It freed up the ranged fighters to deal with the spiders on the wall with no worry. Spiders kept dropping in the midst of the army. Each time they would drop in where the ranged fighters were it would disrupt their ability to attack, or even get them killed. Not Tommin’s though. Each time a spider would drop in on the ranged fighters the melee fighters would fall upon that spider and quickly dispatch it. Or when one of the spiders fell from the ceiling dead the shield bearers would protect the ranged fighters with their shields. Each time a dead spider fell upon the army it also wreaked havoc just as much as a live one, as the spiders weighed somewhere between 40 and 100 lbs. The dead spiders were almost as deadly as the live ones were.
With the numbers of spiders below Gram’s army thinning, the pressure on them lessened just enough for them to be able to move forward again. Until then they had been stopped in their tracks, else they would start to lose entirely too many of their fighters, also furthering their potential failure in this battle. As the ledge came closer to the floor the under hang became less and less prominent making it harder and harder for the spiders to hide underneath and attack up into the army. Each step that they took forward pushed them that much closer to safety.
By this time the army that Tommin’s unit was a part of had established a decent foothold in the room, and was pushing forward. They had managed to get all of their fighters into the final chamber, even though it had taken a while to get everyone in, they now went on the offensive. They slowly and methodically began to push forward towards the overhang so that they could link up with Gram’s army and together they could push towards the queen.
With the room being almost diamond with round edges in shape the army had to push a way to meet up with Gram’s army, they basically would end up on opposite sides of the oval once Gram’s army made it to the ground floor. But with them coming out almost even with the other army they were able to support each other. Once the spiders were cleared from directly underneath the back of the army its ranged fighters began raining deadly projectiles down on the spiders attacking the army Bjorn and company were part of.
Tommin’s unit ended up sweeping along the edge of the cavern directly underneath the overhang the other army was making their way under. Alaric and Rickie were in the frontlines helping protect those around them with their pure battlefield presence. Meira was right behind them helping out with her spells, with her spells range she wasn’t as long range of a fighter as Bjorn was with his bow, so she had to move with the rest of the unit. As for Tayla, she was a part of the force protecting Bjorn and the rest of their ranged fighters.
Before the battle Tommin had formed his war party once again and invited Bjorn. After he split his unit in two he had given command of the second force to Bjorn, he was the only one left behind who was a part of Tommin’s war party. Which made it so that he was the only one who could hear Tommin’s commands and make sure they were executed. “Move forward with the rest of the army and make sure that you don’t stop hitting the spiders underneath Gram’s feet.” He communicated with Bjorn.
Following the order Bjorn’s group slowly pushed their way forward with the rest of the army, never once stopping their attack against the other wall. Gram’s army had descended roughly halfway to the ground level by now. The leading edge of his army was a good distance ahead of the ground the other army had managed to secure.
They were finally making some good progress when the spiders showed their next trick. The large form of the spider warriors came lumbering out of where the spiders seemed to be coming from. Over a dozen began crawling over the ground heading for the army on the ground.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Upon seeing the hulking forms of the spiders the army stopped in its tracks. The order came down from Gram to hold position and brace for impact. From his vantage point he could easily see the large spiders scuttling across the ground heading for the second army. Almost as one the army stopped their advance forward and braced for the impact. The Eld lacked many things that Earth had, but there were plenty of things that were better than what earth had. Their battle communication and coordination was one thing that was substantially better.
They held position, attacking the smaller spiders as collectively they held their breaths, waiting for the hammer to drop. A few seconds later the hammer fully dropped as the 12 massive spiders slammed into the ranks of the army. This time they were better prepared for the onslaught than they were when they first encountered the massive spiders. As such the impact that they had on the army was significantly less than it had been the first time. It was still hard to stop such a massive creature, but they didn’t rampage through the ranks like they did the first time. It was hard to tell if they were just being smarter or if they were struggling to make it through the ranks but this time only one had made it through the line.
That one spider ended up making it through right where Tommin’s unit was situated. Of the 12, 2 of them were in line with Tommin’s unit. The spiders seemed to concentrate the massive spiders on one side of the attack. All 12 were attacking the left side of the army's line. With the two attacking the front line of Tommin’s unit and the one that made it through they were hard pressed once again.
Once again Tommin made a snap decision which would save their hides. He ordered Alaric, Rickie, and Meira to try and distract that one massive spider while they tried to handle the other two.
Without hesitation Rickie and Alaric withdrew from the frontlines and started to run after the massive spider, their motions almost in sync, if not for the height difference. The front line filled in the gaps that Alaric and Rickie’s presence left. Meira was within her spells effective range, but not close enough for the spider to attack her, so she struck first. An arc of lightning shot out of her hand and slammed into the side of the spider, causing it to collapse. In the last battle she had leveled up once again which gave her more talent points to spend. She had picked up a passive talent which increased the chance of the status effects of her spells to trigger.
While the spider was stunned Alaric and Rickie fell upon it with reckless abandon, slamming their weapons over and over again into the spider to try and do as much damage before it recovered. After it did they stepped back and took up a more defensive stance to try and distract the spider, which they were able to do. Their only real goal was to make sure the spider didn’t turn its attacks on the backside of the army, in the situation they were in, it would have likely been the end of their attack.
Even though their attacks seemed reckless and without thought, even in a moment of rage they didn’t let themselves fully go. Their attacks had been to the legs on the right side of the spider severing two of them where the leg met the carapace. Their goal was to hopefully hinder the spider's movements when it did manage to recover. Their plan paid off, for when the spider recovered its speed was severely reduced with two of its limbs on the same side missing.
That unspoken decision that they made paid dividends throughout the fight. Each time the spider wanted to make a lunging attack it had to almost telegraph its intention by stabilizing itself on its two legs awkwardly before lunging forward. It didn’t take long for them to be able to read the body language of the spider as it tried to attack. Their severing of the two legs also limited the spider's ability to attack with its remaining legs. It wasn’t able to use its right legs at all as it needed its two on that side to balance. So it had to use only its front leg on the left side. By the way that the spider moves it needed its remaining three on the left to remain on its feet as well.
Everything was going so well. It looked like the three of them would be able to easily take down the spider. There was only one hiccup in the fight. When the spider lunged forward trying to hit Alaric he dodged backwards. What he didn’t see was the rock behind him and his foot got caught. Alaric went sprawling as the spider finished its lunge. It didn’t manage to hit him with the lunge, but it didn’t miss with the follow-up.
The spider used its considerable weight to fall on top of Alaric. It managed to pin his right arm with one of its legs and it brought its mouth down trying to bite Alaric’s head off. Alaric threw his left arm up, the one with his expensive shield attached to it, trying to get it between the spider's mouth and his head. It worked, but with mixed results. He managed to get his arm in the way, but he wasn’t able to get the shield side of the shield to face the spider. This put his hand right in the way of the spider's mouth.
With a crunch the spider bit down on Alaric’s hand, very easily going right through the thick muscle and bone underneath. With a yell of pain Alaric tried to push the spider off, but with the size and weight of the beast it was almost impossible. On top of the size and weight the mandibles of the spider sank into the wood on either side of the shield. One of the fangs managed to puncture his arm while on its way to the wood.
In a moment Rickie was there and he triggered his lunge talent. He and his heavy two handed sword shot forward towards the spider. The tip of the sword pierced one of its eight eyes and continued forward through the back of its head and straight into the brain, killing it instantly.
With a mighty heave Alaric freed himself from the fangs of the spider before its corpse fell to the ground pinning him. He was able to fully extract himself, well fully except for his hand. In the place where his hand used to be sat a stump which was spurting blood. Alaric immediately dropped his magical weapon and grabbed a hold of his shirt underneath his armor. With a tug he ripped a section of cloth off of his shirt and wrapped his stump in it.
Meira rushed over to Alaric after she saw him free himself from the spider. As she ran she couldn’t see exactly what was happening as Alaric’s back was to her. What she could see was blood spurting from somewhere on Alaric’s body. When she got to him she could see the blood soaked temporary bandage that he used to cover his hand.
Grabbing a hold of the bandage she pulled it away from his skin. Trusting his friend Alaric let it go. As soon as the bandage was clear Meira began casting healing spell after healing spell focusing on Alaric trying to hopefully stop the bleeding. Slowly but steadily the wound began to heal over and new skin began to grow and cover the bleeding stump. The wound on the arm healed up quickly.
Bjorn and Tayla were unaware of all of this happening while he continued to rain his deadly arrows down on the spiders. As soon as the massive spiders joined the fray Bjorn ordered his unit to move towards the area that was being attacked, this order was independent of anything Tommin had ordered. The moment the large spiders came within range of his arrows Bjorn switched his targets from the ones on the overhang to the 9 feet tall spiders.
They towered over the army that they were attacking making them easy targets. As soon as he switched targets Bjorn also switched his ammunition. He switched from the normal heavy, blunt tipped arrows to the ones that he prepared with his vials of poison. He began to rain poisoned death down on the massive spiders, each time one of his arrows struck it did more damage than it should have. The poison working its magic would make the arrow sink deeper than it should have, or part the carapace. In one particular instance he hit a spider near where one of its legs attached and after a few seconds the limb broke free as the carapace was no longer able to withstand the weight it bore.
With all of the advantages the spiders had in this combat the humanoids also had their advantages. With them pulling out all of the stops they brought all of their tools to bear. Over the course of this entire campaign Gram had made the decision to not give out their entire stock of potions that the alchemists brew. 2 in every 3 potions that were brewed ended up going to the army to help keep them alive, the last potion went into a stockpile. He knew that this last battle would be intense so he was preparing for it. By the time this battle came around they had stockpiled nearly enough health potions for everyone to have one. Of the 1600 soldiers who went into battle 1200 of them had a health potion.
The next advantage that the humanoids had over the spiders was of course their gear. With Blackrock Bay being a major trade hub they had plenty of money that they could use to outfit the army. At the start of the fight against the spiders everyone had some form of leather armor with a portion having a set of heavy metal armor which was significantly better at protecting against the spider's claws and fangs. By the last engagement most everyone was decked out in that heavy metal armor. Duke Dornan did a good job with managing the coffers and hadn’t used his influence and money to make himself rich. He had spent years stockpiling for this exact type of eventuality. He had stockpiled magical gear that could be used to fight back and empower his citizens to help defend their home. As soon as this war started he opened up the treasury and started to divvy up the magical gear to anyone who could use it.
Their ability to coordinate and communicate rapidly made them move as a unit. Making it so that they were able to take on this numerically superior opponent with considerably less casualties. All of that communication was the effect of skills. That was something that Bjorn learned that humanoids had the advantage over the more monstrous creatures. While they get skills and abilities most monstrous creatures don’t get that. Their own natural weapons that they had gave them more than enough advantages to survive in such a brutal world. Something most humanoids didn’t get.
Up to this point in the battle the humanoids hadn’t used their advantage of the poison that Bjorn and Skarit had brewed. That changed though when The large spiders entered the fray, of the 131 that was given to Gram almost every single professed fighter got a vial, as well as each leader of a unit was given one. For the most part they were to keep them back until they deemed that the poison would be worth using. Each person with a vial though was given the orders to use their best judgement as to when it would be best used.
Last, but certainly not least, was the spell casters. Even though the entire army had roughly 50 spell casters total their presence could not be ignored. With everyone called to this battle all of the mages were pulled in as well. From what Bjorn could see there were mages that could cast every single school of basic elemental magic, except for death magic. They all brought different benefits to the fight, but the two who were the most effective were the earth mages and the life mages. It was learned early on that the snatcher spiders had an inherent weakness to crushing attacks, so it was little wonder as to why the geomancers were effective. As for the biomancers it was also fairly obvious why they would play a major role. Every time that someone would get injured if a biomancer was around they would quickly either patch them up or stabilize them so they could be taken away from the battlefield.
Most of the mages only ever had access to a single school of magic, but each one was a force multiplier and they showed their worth time and time again. Of the 50 mages only maybe 10 of them had access to more than one school of magic. But each one that did was a further force multiplier. Their pure utility with the range of spells and problems they could solve and fix with their magical powers made them some of the most valuable people to have on the field of battle. Which with no surprise made them some of the most heavily protected people in the army.
By the time that Meira had Alaric’s new stub healed to the point where it no longer was bleeding, Gram's force had made it down to the same floor level. With the poison making it easier to kill the massive spiders things were looking good for the two armies. But it didn’t come without cost. Of the 1600 who initially joined the fray maybe 1000 were left on their feet. The rest were either dead or had to be evacuated because of their injuries. Almost everyone by this point had some sort of injury at the very least, whether it was a light scratch or a fully useless leg because the bones had been melted, everyone was feeling it. In a span of two hours almost half of the army had fallen victim to the onslaught.
Even with the cost they didn’t stop pushing forward. Everyone was determined to continue fighting. They had also made the spiders pay dearly for their advancements. Thousands of the remaining spiders had been killed in the onslaught. To the point where it was getting easier to press forward and make up ground. The spider's numbers were starting to thin out.
After Meira had healed Alaric’s hand she tried to get him to pull out of the battle. “Alaric, you were injured, you should retreat and help regroup with the rest of the wounded. There might even be someone who can regrow your hand.”
In response Alaric let out a low growl, not at Meira, but at the thought of retreating. “It is just a hand, I can still fight can’t I? I want to make those fucking spiders pay for costing me my hand. If I retreat now, when will I ever get the chance to get my vengeance?”
“You don’t understand. Your body still has a chance for you to regrow your hand if you get to the right mage. You don’t have to be permanently maimed for the rest of your life because of it. I saw Jantis, he should be able to regrow your hand. Let’s go to him.”
The worry and care in her voice cut through Alaric’s anger, not fully, but enough for him to listen to her. He turned towards Meira. “Thank you for your concern. But our friends are dying, I am not going to sit back and hope that your mage Jantis has enough mana and is willing to regrow my hand. I would rather help kill these bastards so that we can leave this damn black rock behind and never look back. I can fight, you stopped my bleeding.”
Alaric held up his stump with the shield still attached. It looked pristine with unblemished skin covering the place his hand used to be. It looked as if there was never a hand attached there to begin with. “You did this, so you could stop the bleeding. What you didn’t intend to do was give me the option to continue fighting, but that is exactly what you did. I can continue to make a difference so that is what I am going to do. If that costs me my left hand so be it. That is a price I am willing to pay.”
Even though she wanted to argue, Meira knew that she couldn’t change Alaric’s mind. Over the last several years she had learned that once the stubborn dwarf made up his mind about something he wasn’t one to be swayed. Instead of continuing to argue she shut her mouth and nodded in agreement. “Very well, let's make them pay.”
Together the two of them made their way back up to the frontline to help fight the spiders. Rickie had already left to do such a thing. It may seem callus but he knew with Meira around Alaric would be just fine. So instead of standing around not doing anything, seeing how he could do anything for Alaric. He made the decision to rejoin the front lines and help finish off the last of the spider warriors.
Quickly Meira and Alaric made it back to the frontlines and rejoined Rickie. As for Bjorn and Tayla they finally finished making their way over to where the rest of their unit was. With Gram’s force down on the ground floor their ranged units weren’t needed to attack the spiders on the under hang. So instead they focused their entire efforts into two areas. The first one was obviously the spiders that were on the ceiling, they did their best to thin their numbers. Luckily the combined focus of the ranged attackers in both the armies had done a good enough job clearing the spiders over their heads. Now they were only attacking spiders that were over the main spider forces heads, raining corpses down on the spider army.
The other area that they focused their attacks was on the giant ball of webbing that the spiders continued to funnel out of. They couldn’t see inside the ball, but that seemed to be what all the spiders were trying to protect. In one area of the webbing there was a giant hole where the spiders were spilling out from. It was roughly 30 feet across and just as tall.
Instead of continuing to push towards the obvious nest of the spiders both of the armies stopped their advance towards it and instead continued to push towards each other attempting to convene. It took the better part of another hour before they were able to fully connect the two armies. Towards the end it felt like they were the anvil to Gram’s hammer. And in the middle were the spiders who were getting smashed between the two unstoppable forces.
Once the two armies were now one again they redeployed their forces briefly. By this time they had spent the better part of 4 hours fighting tooth and nail against the spiders, thousands were dead and most everyone was exhausted, but with the end in sight they wouldn’t back down.
There was a brief lull in the fighting. The spiders pulled back a few feet and held their position. Weary of a trap the humanoids did the same. It was unsettling as for the last 4 hours the spiders continued to throw themselves at the army with little regard to their lives. All eyes turned towards the entrance to the nest.
15 more of the large spider warriors came pouring out of the nest, and all hearts sank. Knowing that they were going to have to kill those as well. Then out of the nest lumbered a gargantuan spider. It was 20 feet tall, its legs splayed 40 feet out from either side of it. Its legs were as thick as 50 year old oak trees. All down the back of the spider there were bone spikes that were densely packed. Last but definitely not least were its massive boulder shaped eyes. All 8 of them were deep and black.
Mentally Bjorn quickly told Tommin. “I have an ability that allows me to identify things. You need to tell Gram right away that this spider has the ability to Mesmerize our forces. He needs to know before we fight that thing.”
Tommin briefly looked away from the monstrosity that came lumbering towards them through the web and made eye contact with Bjorn. He held it for a brief second before he nodded, and turned back to the spider. Less than 10 seconds later every single commander of the army ordered their soldiers to not look at the massive spider, and that Duke Dornan and Gram would take care of it.
As soon as the orders made it to the army the brief lull was broken and the two armies collided once again. The spider queen took one brief look over the field of battle and turned towards where Gram and Duke Dornan were at and started to move in that direction.
In a matter of seconds the three monsters were locked into a vicious battle. Gram had held his growth talent just for this situation. As the spider charged right at him he grew from his 8 and a half feet to almost thirteen feet tall and grew easily twice as wide. As for Duke Dornan his hand became wreathed in green as he began to cast a spell. The sounds of powerful blows landing on the massive spider echoed throughout the room as the two remaining armies clashed.
The final push of the final battle had finally come, and no one was going to back down. Just when the armies re-engaged on each other chaos erupted from the humanoid ranks. All through the ranks of the humanoids Snatcher spiders burst forth from the bodies of once former allies. Things quickly descended into chaos as well over 200 snatcher spiders burst forth and started to attack those around them.
