"Gnnnghh!!"

  I drop to my knees as it hits me, an overwhelming tide of dread, foul and mind-numbing, like poison being poured into my brain. It sinks into my bones, cold and venomous, and the fresh scars on my left arm erupt in sudden pain. I glance at Luna. She hasn’t fallen, but her head is bowed into her hands, trembling, her breath shallow.

  My gaze shifts toward the shadows ahead, where the corridor darkens. I can’t see the source, but I don’t need to, for it’s clear as day.

  Maldor.

  I brace against the floor, grit my teeth, and push myself upright. There’s no chain around my limbs, no spell holding me down, yet every movement feels like wading through tar. Even standing is a struggle. Still, I force a step forward, staggering under a weight.

  After a few moments, the pressure lifts, the wave of dread receding. I glance to Luna, still rubbing at her temples, and ask, "What in the hells was that?"

  She grimaces. "A spell. Dark sorcery of uncommon magnitude."

  My thoughts flash to Maldor's words, the secrets he shared with me. The use of captive mana, drawn from the living, forced to fuel his spellwork. I speak low. "He’s using their mana. The prisoners. Using them to fuel some great spell."

  Luna’s brow tightens. "What spell?"

  I shake my head. "I don't know."

  She exhales sharply through her nose, jaw set. "It doesn't matter. We’ll strike him down here.."

  We press on, following the path from which the miasma flowed. Soon we reach the laboratory proper—a vast, hollowed cavern, still heavy with the smell of rot. Vats line the walls, shadowed by racks of cruel tools and rusted chains. Severed limbs remain scattered in places, but most of them, even the ones I had carved, are now gone.

  Luna scans the chamber warily. "Where is he?"

  To the north stands a tall ironbound door, leading to his private chambers. I move toward it. The door creaks open into a room that hasn’t changed since I last saw it: a broad, worn bed in one corner, a sturdy wooden chest at its foot, and a well-kept desk covered in parchment and dustless glass.

  I step toward the candles mounted on the wall, brushing my hand across them. Sparks flare faintly from my palm, and one by one they sputter to life, casting light across the room’s austere furnishings.

  I sift through his desk first, papers rustling beneath my fingers. A few letters catch my eye, sealed with a strange purple wax. The mark resembles a sun, twisted and barbed around the edges.

  Luna steps up behind me, leaning in to glance at the parchment. "The purple sun," she mutters. "That's Ashkar Veyrn’s seal."

  I look at her. "Should we read them?"

  She shakes her head. "We’ve no time for that."

  She moves to the chest beside the bed, frowning at the lock. With a quick motion, she draws the silver rod from her belt and taps it against the latch. A flash erupts, and with a thundercrack of splintering wood, the lid blasts open.

  From it she draws a shortsword, its hilt and scabbard black, inlaid with gold. The guard bears a meticulously carved spider, an emerald set into its center like a glinting eye. Luna smiles, turning the weapon over in her hands, then reads the inscription etched along the scabbard.

  “Nsam Nkrante,” she says quietly and with a little reverence. “A Mystic Arm.”

  I blink. “A what?”

  She looks up. “A Mystic Arm. Rare weapons or sometimes armor, of a mystical origin. Hence why they're commonly referred to as Mystical Armaments. Or Mystic Arms.”

  I frown. “So the smith was a sorcerer?”

  “In some cases,” she says, slipping the sword into the light. “But not always. It’s a broad term. Could be a helm blessed by fairies, a sword tempered in dragonfire, or a sickle gifted by some wandering demon. All sorts of strange tales follow them. Most are too old to trace.”

  “There aren't any freshly made ones?”

  Luna shrugs. “Not that I'm aware. The craft is lost to the old world. The only way to get one, is to find it.”

  She draws it, and the blade gleams with runes that shimmer faintly, carved deep into the steel. She admires it with a smile, then sheathes the blade and fastens the scabbard to her belt beside her other shortsword.

  I glance into the chest, a little jealous. Only one item remains.

  A scroll.

  As I reach for it, the scars on my left arm throb with heat, responding to something in its presence. I lift it carefully and unfurl it. The runes are immediately familiar, the same kind Maldor had me carve into flesh.

  Luna steps close, her voice firm. “That one’s dangerous. Of the dark. Best we leave it be.”

  I frown. “But why? The runes are of the same sort as those on the blade.”

  She shakes her head. “Perhaps, but the blade’s magic is bound within the steel. I don’t need to understand the runes to wield it. That scroll though... it needs to be read. Comprehended. At least for a time. It's far more dangerous."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I take it anyway, gripping the scroll with unease. “We can't turn away a weapon, not now.”

  Luna folds her arms. “Fine. But tread carefully. Don't let that dark knowledge take root in your mind. Some things are better left unknown.”

  We leave Maldor’s chambers, but barely cross the threshold before freezing in place. At the heart of the laboratory, a monstrous spider looms, its body bloated and towering. It’s as large as a house, legs like spears, black and glistening with oil-slick sheen. Beneath it, scattered like loyal retainers, smaller spiders gather, about as many as we faced before. All of them turn to us in perfect unison, their black eyes pulsing with malice.

  I whisper, breath caught in my throat, “Is that...?”

  Luna answers quietly, gaze fixed. “A female. Their mother. I've never heard of one so big....”

  Luna and I reach for our weapons, but before we can draw, something drops from above.

  “S-Shit!!”

  I twist, barely in time to face it, a spider slamming into me, its eight legs snapping tight around my torso. I'm forced to the ground with a bone shaking crash, mandibles already stabbing down at my chest.

  A sharp clang, my brigandine catches the blow, the steel holding. But the impact of the fall knocks the breath from me. The spider hisses, a wet, rattling sound, as I thrash beneath its crushing weight. Its limbs dig in, closed tight around me, refusing to let go.

  Panic takes me. I fumble for Joss’s knife, my hand barely finding the hilt, and I drive it up into the creature’s side. Once. Twice. Again. The blade punches through chitin with a crunch. The spider lets out a shriek, shrill and furious, before it finally recoils, legs loosening as it rolls off me, writhing in pain.

  I snatch up my sword and slam it into the spider’s head, panicked, ichor spraying across my arms. I look to Luna, we’ve been separated, spiders swarming between us, the massive matriarch bearing down on her.

  "Use the scroll!" I shout.

  But she’s already moving. The scroll is in her hand.

  "Smēorflōd!"

  Oil explodes from her palm in a pressurized wave. She runs, spraying in every direction—across the floor, over skittering spiders, even across the swollen hide of the mother herself. The creatures hiss and thrash, their limbs slipping on the black sheen.

  The mother stabs her spear like leg forward. Luna dives aside, barely dodging as she tumbles across the stone. The stream falters, sputtering out with a final dribble.

  I move, sprinting through the chaos.

  A spider darts from the side, I duck, blade flashing as I cleave through its abdomen. Another blocks my path, but tensing I spring over it, legs exploding with power they've never had before. Spdiers are everywhere, but I don’t stop.

  Then I see it: Luna’s trail, a slick arc of black across the floor.

  I leap-

  And slam my palm into the oil, sparks of fire flaring through the scar.

  The oil ignites as sparks burst from my palm, erupting into a roiling sea of fire. Flames roar across the slick stone, devouring everything in their path. Spiders scream, an awful, high-pitched cacophony, as they're consumed by the blaze. Dozens fall, their legs curling inward, bodies shrivelling into charred husks. Even the matriarch catches, her grotesque body engulfed in the inferno.

  The great spider rears back with a shriek that rattles the walls, flailing as flames climb her limbs and scorch her swollen abdomen.

  Then... comes another scream, sharper... more intelligent.

  The surviving spiders, those untouched by fire, turn as one. Without hesitation, they charge headlong into the blaze. They hurl themselves at her, swarming her burning form, legs clutching, abdomens bursting. They smother her in their own bodies, extinguishing the fire with flesh and ichor, sacrificing themselves in a grotesque display of obedience.

  It works. The matriarch howls as the last of the flames flicker out, her blackened children falling away in droves, collapsing into the seething oil at her feet. Smoke curls from her charred limbs.

  But she lives.

  The blaze lingers on the ground, licking at her legs, but she is too tall. Only the lowest of her chitinous limbs blacken, the damage minimal. Within moments, even that fire gutters out, swallowed by the settling silence and the stench of burned silk and ash.

  I look to Luna, she’s pinned beneath a dead spider, her shortsword slick with ichor as she struggles to free herself. But the mother is coming for her, furious at the source of the oil. One massive, spiked leg rises, poised to skewer her.

  I sprint forward, sword raised, and hack at its hind leg. The steel clangs off uselessly, its chitin too dense. With a casual flick, the spider swats me aside like a gnat, sending me crashing across the floor.

  It lunges again, foreleg stabbing down, missing Luna by a breath and impaling one of its own scorched children. Undeterred, it strikes again, faster than I believed possible, legs jabbing in rapid succession like a barrage of spears.

  But Luna is already moving. She rolls clear of the corpse, springing to her feet in a blur. A leg stabs toward her and she vaults over it, twisting mid-air, her cloak whipping behind her. Another limb sweeps low, and she flips backward, landing lightly on a toppled vat, only to leap again as the spider crushes it beneath a blow.

  She cartwheels between its legs, using the slick floor to slide beneath a second strike. A third leg crashes down beside her, cracking the stone, but she runs along the debris without losing stride, turning and flipping off a rusted chain hanging from the ceiling to clear yet another blow.

  How in the hells...

  I watch, stunned, her movements are flawless. Faster and sharper than I’ve ever seen her. The great spider snarls, frustrated, stabbing again and again with its four front legs as Luna dances between them, each breath a heartbeat from the end.

  She can't possibly keep it up though.

  I glance once more at the towering matriarch, its body is too high to reach with my sword, its legs too hard to cut. I clench my teeth and raise my hand, the scar on my palm glowing with molten orange light.

  I’m ready to cast.

  Then-

  I freeze, my hand still sparking with flame, and look to Luna just as she crashes into a hard roll, her back slamming the wall with a thud. A perilous position, as the great spider bears down on her, mandibles snapping, hatred in its many black eyes.

  But still I refrain, seeing the object now in her hand.

  The silver rod is drawn, held firm, pointed straight at the beast.

  "Līgetstr?l!"

  The word echoes across the cavern.

  And a thunderclap answers.

  From the tip of the rod bursts a massive bolt of lightning, white and blinding, ripping through the air with a deafening boom. It strikes the spider dead center in its grotesque bulk.

  The force is titanic.

  It lets out a screech that splits the air as it’s lifted off the ground, hurled across the laboratory like a thrown doll. It crashes against the far wall with a sound like splintering stone and thrashing metal, its limbs splayed and twitching, scorched and steaming.

  Then, silence.

  It doesn’t rise.

  I stare at the thing, stunned. It's dead.

  Luna stands nearby, lightning still flickering over her skin in delicate arcs. She slides the silver rod back into her belt and pulls out a blue vial, the mana potion she bought from Zaenith, and drinks it in one gulp.

  I approach her slowly, eyes wide. "What was that? A spell? And the way you were moving...."

  She caps the vial. "I already told you of my abilities."

  I frown. "You misled the scale."

  She glances away, expression neutral. "We'll speak on it later. For now, Maldor is ahead of us."

  Another wave of miasma crashes over us, thick and suffocating, Maldor’s spell is surging again. Luna and I both turn to face it, and spot a narrow corridor off to the side.

  I recognize it instantly. A dim, constricted path choked with webbing. I remember it well, the mweb wall that blocked the way, the feeling of dread when I approached it. Not unlike what I'm feeling now.

  I glance at Luna. She meets my look.

  Together, we step into the dark.

  Toward him.

  Results

  + 1 Skill

  + 1 Dark Scroll