NOVEL NEXT Ch. 49: Finish it
The spider stalked through the chamber, slow and deliberate, the hairs on its legs standing on end, searching for her with every skill and stat at its disposal.
Cass padded around it, paying extra attention to the signals from Dodge and Stealth as she moved from the shadow of one pillar to the next.
The spider’s path spiraled through the room, tighter and tighter, until it walked along the edge of the pool in the center of the room. It stopped beside its prey, at the point where the shallow channel met the pool.
It settled beside the cocoon, the channel to its left, its back legs half submerged in the pool behind it. The tension didn’t leave its body for a second. It was still looking for her.
Perhaps it considered the water a safer place for it than the land? Perhaps it was instinctual, the way an injured animal retreated to its den or nest. Perhaps it was tactical, thinking it could limit the angles she could attack from.
It didn’t matter. Cass threw another feint from the left side then darted right, running alongside the shallow channel, as far from where she’d bet the spider would expect her without splashing in the water itself.
Two yards from the spider, her foot slipped. The stone was wet. Water overflowed over the lip of the channel ever so slightly. Barely enough to be called a puddle. It was so little. Not enough to splash.
Barely enough to ripple.
Barely.
The spider spun back on her, completely disregarding the feint the moment her foot hit the wet stone. It knew she was here.
There wasn’t time to stop, not off balance as she was from her slip. She could only keep barreling forward, hoping for the best.
The spider swatted at her, its leg knocking her over and into the air above the pool.
Cass panicked as she flew. This was a Grotto Spider. Semi-aquatic. It would have no trouble catching her in the water. She could already imagine the thing’s fangs stabbing into her chest as she thrashed, venom coursing through her veins. The spider stabbing her with its sharp foreleg. The spider biting down on her head and ripping it from her shoulders. The spider wrapping her in a silk prison alive, trapped forever. The spider holding her under the surface as she thrashed, drowning.
There was no end to the ways it could kill her if she landed in the water and precious little she could do to stop it.
Time slowed as her panic and Alacrity threw her thoughts into overdrive.
She could not land in the water. She needed to land on the other side of the pool. That wasn’t going to happen with her current trajectory.
Something about this was familiar though. She was flying through the air… Just like when she was running from the Centipedes. How quickly could she summon a Wind Blade to ride with Wind Step? Quickly, she hoped.
She swung her staff wildly, hoping a big enough Wind Blade formed quickly enough, and willed herself to step onto it.
The relief she felt as her body phased out of the solid plane and into wind was immediate and welcome. She rode it across the pool and even turned it around a pillar and out of sight with Elemental Manipulation. Even managed to land on her feet.
As her hammering heart slowed to a more reasonable pace, she felt her grin creep back over her face. She lived. She lived and was still in a position to attack the spider again.
The spider screamed in frustration when she didn’t land with a splash in its pool. It kept its position by the water, its glassy eyes scanning the dark, the hairs on its body bristling. A ring of acid formed around its body, green and glistening in the low light.
It would be dangerous to approach carelessly, but if she couldn’t run beside the channel, she’d just do it in reverse.
She threw a feint along the channel and Sprinted down the center of the dry section.
The spider didn’t budge, barely reacting to the feint.
Cass scowled and slunk back. It either knew that she wasn’t going to attack from the water again or had figured out the difference between her wind blade and stealth. Either way was trouble.
Her entire strategy relied on this one trick. Had she been overconfident?
Maybe. But, either way, she needed to know which of the two was the answer. At least it was simple enough to test.
She tossed a feinting Wind Blade from the land. The spider reacted like she was attacking, stabbing at the wind and screaming as it found nothing.
It was the first then. It knew she wasn’t going to risk an aquatic attack.
Which was true, but left her without many options.
Or did it?
A plan formed in the back of her mind. An application of Wind Step that was obvious, but which she had yet to attempt. But the more she thought about it, the more obvious of an answer it became.
Risky as all hell if she messed up the timing. She glanced over her remaining Focus:
86/225
Not enough to give this a second try if she messed this up. Not enough to escape again if her timing was wrong. But enough to do it.
She grit her teeth and slunk around the room to the point directly across the channel from the spider.
It didn’t believe she would attack from here.
She took a deep breath.
She barely believed she would attack from here.
She gathered a Wind Blade. This was her last chance to stop. There was no turning back once she started.
She threw it at the spider’s back and Wind Stepped onto it with a stomach overflowing with apprehension.
Intangible as the wind, she skated over the water, leaving not even a ripple on its surface.
The spider twitched but didn’t move.
She raced forward, but the moments dragged, each elongated into an eternity where her mind drew up every potential way this could go wrong. Any second the spider would turn. Any second she would fall out of the wind too early. Any second the wind would still and she’d fall anyway.
She didn’t. She raced on, directly toward her opponent.
It was only when she was above the creature that she dropped out of the wind, materializing above it. She threw herself down, manifesting a Wind Blade wreathed in Mana Blade at the end of her staff. She drove it down, as the spider’s eyes widened and it tried to wriggle out of the way.
There wasn’t time.
Her glaive ran through the crown of its head. It exploded in a gush of green goo, its head eviscerated by the combined sharpness of the blade driven by Cass’s full weight.
Level Up!
+ 1 Dex
+ 1 End
+ 1 Wll
+ 1 Ala
+ 4 Free Points
Atmospheric Sense has increased to level 7.
Wind Step has increased to level 4.
Staff Mastery has increased to level 7.
Stealth has increased to level 8.
Dodge has increased to level 7.
Wind Blade has increased to level 6.
Mana Blade has increased to level 4.
The spider crumbled beneath her, the lifeless legs unable to support the weight of the rest of the corpse. Cass collapsed with it, falling to the wet floor beside the spider.
The exhaustion consumed her. She didn’t need to check her stats to know there was only a bare trickle of Stamina and Focus left. She lay there, the water and spider guts soaking into her hair and her clothes, her body already drenched in sweat and blood.
And yet, her body buzzed with the energy from the level-up. With the power and the thrill of having survived. With the weight of her accomplishment.
She’d done it.
She’d killed it. She was unstoppable. She felt like she’d just stepped off a roller coaster, her heart thrummed in her chest. Adrenaline raced up and down her nerves, drowning the exhaustion and pain beneath a layer of excitement she couldn’t contain.
She’d saved—
Cass shot up. Right! The person!