Marco balks at Tristan's suggestion. At first. But later on he changes his mind and hunts Tristan down. “All right,” he says. “I'm in. Just promise not to fuck Raquelle. Okay?”
***
“Oh please, get up! Get up!” Shemhazai affects embarrassment. “We're equals in Her Majesty's eyes, remember?”
Andaragashkat didn't know how he was supposed to remember something he'd never heard before. It also plainly wasn't true, but he took it as her not wanting to stand on ceremony. To keep their interactions informal. Casual. Not suspicious.
She leaned back. “First thing's first. The goblins who lived here weren't exterminated. Not entirely. No, most of them survived. The humans drove them ever deeper underground until they were discovered and captured by dark elves. The elves now hold them in bondage. Our first priority will be to liberate them. The goblins, I mean. Not only will this free your kin, the loss of their slaves should start a civil war that we can exploit to take over the dark elf city as well. Isn't that a delightful plan?”
She frowns. “There's just one problem. We don't know where their city is. I'm going to lean on Jenessa to start sending expeditions down there. That shouldn't be too hard, since they're still looking for their missing succubus. But once they find her, they may need a... new incentive.” She hands Andaragashkat a hand-drawn map. “Those are the locations of treasure hoards. Don't 'find' them all at once, okay? We have to keep Jenessa's interest.”
***
Krista is thrilled by Neve's idea. It honestly never occurred to her. Now that all of her sisters are dead (along with the only one she really liked), there's nothing tying her to this place now. If Neve has an idea of where to go, and what to do when they get there, then Krista will be right behind her.
11/28/18, Arachnophobia
Jenessa hasn't given up on finding Alice. What's more, Shemhazai has been hinting that the gang should lay low after the ranch raid and focus on exploring the dungeon. After all, they can do that without attracting outside attention, as the gang will be literally raiding its own basement.
Jenessa puts together a eight-man team consisting of Xylia, Mary, Neve, Airadne, Naomi, Amanda, Elena, and Tristan. Shemhazai suggests sending Andaragashkat as well, since the goblin seems to have quite a knack for skulking around down there. Jenessa agrees.
The party takes their time exploring the second floor. They need to be thorough because a) there's no guarantee that Alice is in any condition to answer their calls and b) they want to find treasure, god damn it! The place seems pretty picked over, though. The group does find evidence of goblins having lived here at one point. When they discover the remains of goblin children murdered by human adventurers, Andaragashkat is surprised to hear Neve, Naomi and Amanda all express their disgust.
No treasure, but the group does find Alice. The succubus is unconscious, and stuck in a giant spiderweb. She's swaddled tightly in spider silk. While the group works on cutting Alice down, a pair of giant spiders crawl across the ceiling toward them. Elena spots them, but it's too late to hide.
The first spider extends its abdomen and fires thick ropes of sticky webbing at Amanda. Amanda tries to dive out of the way, but she just isn't fast enough. She half-screams, half-squawks, and falls on the floor, wrapped up like the unconscious Alice.
The second spider does the same, but goes for Tristan. “Wuh! No!” Tristan squawks. He flails his arms, but this does nothing. His body is quickly covered in sticky silk. At that point, his words become too muffled to make out. He falls over.
Mary and Elena loose their arrows, sinking them into the first and second spider, respectively. Andaragashkat throws a spear into the first spider, which makes it fall down from the ceiling. It raises its front legs up in a threat display. Xylia, Ariadne, and Naomi rush in to attack!
While the three melee fighters are engaging the first spider, Amanda panics and writhes around. With Neve's help, Tristan is able to break free of the web.
The first spider pounces on Naomi and pins her to the floor, but she raised her weapon just in time. Its dripping fangs are inches from her face, but she somehow manages to not get bit.
Amanda isn't quite so lucky. The second spider drops down from the celing right on top of her. The bite is pure agony. Even worse than the last time she died. Both fangs are driven deep into the flesh of her lower abdomen, between her navel and her crotch. It hurts so bad that she can't stay conscious. She blacks out from the pain almost immediately.
Tristan rushes in to join the three girls fighting the first spider and actually gets a good hit in. Xylia scores a nice blow too, and Elena puts an arrow in its mouth. But it's Mary who scores the killing blow. Her arrow goes right into one of the spider's two big main eyes (the other six are much smaller). Instantly, the beast crumples up into a ball and rolls backwards. Still twitching, but dead.
Too close to throw his spear, Andaragashkat simply stabs it into the other spider. It ignores him, though, and goes for Ariadne. It's ironic, perhaps, for Ariadne to be killed by a spider, but this is precisely what happens. The bite is wicked. One of the fangs is stabbed into her lower back, the other goes into her neck. Unlike Amanda, whose heart has just stopped from all the venom, Ariadne is killed by the physical trauma of the bite itself. Her screaming quickly terminates in a gurgle as she bleeds out through her open throat. She gets only a moment of regret before her knees give out and she falls tits-up on the dungeon floor.
Ariadne dies rough. While it isn't actually the venom that's killing her, she got enough of it that her last moments are pure torture. When she finally loses consciousness, her last thought is one of gratified relief. It hurts so bad she's glad to die.
Even if Neve were able to help her, she's busy trying to stabilize Amanda. It's strange. By all rights, Amanda should be dead as well. But the girl has already resumed breathing (well, choking), and while the spasming and foaming at the mouth don't look... great, Amanda seems to be getting better not worse. The weird thing is that Neve hasn't even finished casting her spell...
Elena sinks another arrow into the second spider's abdomen. It's a good hit, but she must not have struck any kind of vital organ, because the spider continues its rampage. It backs Xylia into a corner, but she manages to block its attack, saving her from the same fate as Ariadne. Naomi wails on the spider, enough to get it off of her.
Andaragashkat backpedals, throwing his last spear into the spider. Tristan runs up and skewers it. While the fact isn't immediately clear, it was Tristan's strike that did it in. The bandits continue to wail on the spider for nearly a minute before they realize that it's actually dead.
The group rushes to get the unconscious Alice back to safety. They bring Ariadne's body as well.
