Chapter 10: Isekai Life & Nighttime Thoughts

Oh, how video game RPGs have desensitized people to the danger posed by spiders.

In video games, the spider is often an early game enemy. It’s weak poison saps a handful of HP at a time, but out of a pool of hundreds if not thousands. That’s if it poisons you- a very rare event.

However, Large Spiders were a deceptively deadly enemy in any AD&D game. Armed with a 1 damage bite, they seem harmless (Well, not to me, but to most people... ) but their bite kills slowly and quietly, often without people knowing.

You see, fifteen minutes after the bite occurs, you roll a saving throw vs poison. With a +2 on the roll, to be fair. But such a bonus is often too little, too late, for when a failed save happens, the unlucky victim immediately takes 15 damage.

That’s right, not, say 3d6 damage or something that might give you a chance. Fifteen. As in, even warriors with mediocre luck bite it at SECOND level. Clerics have to be extremely lucky to survive at second. Rogues have no chance until at least third level, and a Wizard is incapable of surviving until fourth. And, universally, for all first level characters, it is simply save or die.

“Move!” I yelled, fetching half a handful of sand from a pouch. Katriana stumbled back, letting me squeeze by. Once I was at the threshold, I tossed the fistful of sand into the air and canted the Hex of Lotus and Willow.

Thankfully, most of the spiders went dormant. Or torpid, or whatever. Four of them kept descending towards us, and I stepped back, letting Katriana forward again.

“Okay, I bought us a little time, about five minutes,” I said, “Voss, you need to go back to the packs, and grab my two flasks of lantern oil, a torch and a flint. Go!”

“Yeah, okay!”

As he ran off, one of the spiders lowered into view of the doorway, and Katriana slashed at it, leaving part of it’s abdomen still hanging from a web, and the rest of it, trailing goo, to drag itself into the shadows of the tower to die.

“Why are you still here? You should have run!” yelled Katriana, as another spider tried to crawl into the corridor from along the wall and ate her sword for it’s trouble.

Why was I still there? It’s lot like I could still help. Sure, Voss was more likely to get to the packs and back up here quickly, but there’s nothing stopping me from backing away.

And then I realized something odd. More strongly than ever, I loved Katriana. In one sense I had just met her yesterday- hell, I even remember thinking “Please die for me, meat shield” when I was making my character with Corgiel. But I could also remember how much she cried when her first pony had to be put down because of a broken leg. Challenging each other more and more, seeing who could garner more praise from the castle tutors that day. How proud she was when the Master of Arms had to call off her lesson because she was so strong, she was making his shield arm ache.

“I can’t leave you here! Their poison can kill!” One of the spider feinted, darting away as her blade clanged off the stone doorframe, only for her to thrust and skewer it, the flick the corpse away on the backswing.

“I would never leave you to die alone!” I shouted, and, despite it seeming like a maudlin and empty statement to half my mind, I meant it.

Katriana smiled as she dispatched the last of the descending spiders, but didn’t reply. Maybe it was kind of an awkward situation, but at the time I was just glad that none of the spiders could hit worth shit.

All the same ... the spider had d8+1 health. Even assuming that Katriana had a modest Strength bonus, she could only hit them half the time and even then, sooner or later one would have the HP to survive being one-shotted and be able to attack on a turn when she only had one attack. We had been lucky so far- extraordinarily lucky, considering how well I must have done on the roll to determine number of creatures affected by sleep. That would not keep up.

We kept an eye on the remaining spiders from where we were standing. They were just starting to become active as Voss came charging back towards us, with an armload of flasks and torches.

“Well, I don’t know what the panic was, but I came as fast as I could.”

Really? What are you, a 0th-level Warrior?

“It’s the venom. They’re actually surprisingly dangerous,” Katriana replied, more kinder than I would have been.

I just wordlessly snatched up one of the clay flasks and launched it into the room. I badly overshot the centre of the room, and the flask exploded against the far wall. The second flask was more-or less on target, shattering in the floor of the room.

By that time, Voss was able to ignite one of the torches and toss it in the room. The lamp oil ignited immediately, the flames spreading quickly among the webs.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” I said, “This will take some time to burn out ... we may as well make camp so I can memorize some new spells.”

“Yeah, I hear you. Well, not about the spells. But it’s been an exciting day,” Voss replied.

We left the fire to burn.

Outside, the sun was beginning to set. It would have been foolish to attempt to make it back to the old campsite in the dark, and nobody had thought to bring firewood of our own, so we spent the night crouched against the side of the cliff, passing jerky and a wineskin back and forth in the dark while we watch the lights blink on in the city below.

“So, will you tell me about these circumstances yet?” Asked Voss.

Katriana looked at me for an answer, so I did. “Oh, uh, no, we’d rather not right now. We just met yesterday, after all.”