The Necromancer

Chapter 3, Part 2

The spider's run into the clearing slowed when it spied the two of us waiting, instead of just Mog trapped in the web. Its eight eyes glittered in the sun, determining how tasty Skip and I would be. It must have liked what it saw, because it let out some kind of hiss and began moving forward again. 

"Well, shit. That's not good." Skip had taken the bow from her back and selected an arrow from her quiver that seemed to shimmer in the light. I didn't know enough about enchantments to know what it would do, but that was no normal arrow.

"What?" I shouted back, louder than I'd intended. "You don't think you can kill it?" The panic in my voice was pretty apparent.

It stepped forward across the clearing, judging how best to attack us. Each step seemed to blight the grass it walked on, spreading veins of shadowy black across the meadow.

"The big one, sure," Skip answered ever confident. Her eyes remained locked on the advancing spider like she could somehow intimidate it away. It didn't seem to get the message. "Not the thousands of little ones, though."

I took a closer look. It wasn't somehow turning the meadow grass black. Those were more spiders, riding on the big one's back and running down its legs to join the fray. An entire carpet of spiders; thousands of them, all charging towards us. Even if her claims about being able to shoot a bug through the eye were true, Skip still didn't have a thousand arrows.

"Do we run?" I asked, already retreating in anticipation. Out of all the horrible deaths I could go through, being eaten by spiders was the absolute worst one I could ever choose. "I'm gonna run!"

"No!" Skip fired off the shimmering arrow, causing the large (I'm assuming mother) spider to freeze in place. That didn't stop the rest of the little spiders from scampering down its legs to the ground, though the arrow had somehow made them all move more slowly. The sea of little arachnids was crawling closer and closer. "I need your help!"

I hastily dropped to my knees and took the cursed goblet from my satchel and began to mix another summoning elixir. The little spiders were close enough that I could begin making out individual legs and fangs and beady little eyes. I poured Lirk's parts out onto the grass and hastily resummoned him. Only a few feet now, and it looked like whatever enchantment was on Skip's arrow was beginning to wear off. The little spiders were moving a bit faster now, and even the big spider was able to take a few plodding steps. The seven or eight additional arrows that Skip had shot into the beast's thorax didn't seem to have any impact.

"Thank you, Ma..."

"Kill them, Lirk! Kill the spiders!" I had no time for pleasantries with Lirk. The skeleton dutifully rushed forward and began trying to stomp on the carpet of arachnids, now almost up to full speed. The Ruby hanging down my chest glowed again, but otherwise had no reaction even as spiders began crawling up Lirk's bony legs and through his ribcage. But once they found no meat on the bones, they scuttled through him and continued towards me and Skip.

"It didn't work!" I told her. She had exhausted her supply of arrows, leaving the massive spider looking like an oozing pincushion, but that apparently wasn't enough to stop it. Instead, it just looked angry. It was still advancing slowly, though: the enchanted arrow's spell was still having some effect.

Mog strained at the web with a frustrated whimper. "RUN!" he shouted to us. "LEAVE MOG." I had a strange moment of realizing that that was the longest thing I'd ever heard him say. In fact, it was the only actual sentence I'd ever heard him speak.

Skip retreated into the trees, looking positively sick. I followed, while Lirk was still desperately stomping at whatever spider he could get to. The spiders didn't seem to notice. "What's the plan?" I asked. Skip always knew what to do. She held her knife out in front of her and continued back into the woods as the big spider continued towards us. Her eyes darted around to Mog struggling against the web, to the giant spider, to the wave of tiny spiders advancing. But she didn't answer me. "Skip, what do we do?" I repeated. She wouldn't just leave Mog there, would she?