What would we do to kill that drider and her minions and save those people? We debated long before we decided on a plan: Hebo was to sneak in under the guise of invisibility and release the prisoners. The drider was asleep and the Kraul were just chittering to themselves, their claws only loosely holding their weapons. Hebo would message us when we should ambush the Kraul as he helped the people to safety. If we moved fast enough, we could kill them all before they even knew we were here.
The plan worked, but not in the way we expected. We got into position. Oromis and Luna, with their weapons drawn, hid in the alcove of our tunnel. I extinguished my light. Petra cast a spider-climb spell on herself and me, and she led me along the ceiling above our enemies. Ezio drew his bow and waited. Hebo managed to free the prisoners. He used his magic to send the message to Ezio. Ezio shouted, loosed his arrow, and we began our battle.
The first Kraul we targeted received an arrow in his throat and a bullet to the chest. He was dead before his body fell to the ground. Luna charged forward and created a resounding blast that threw two Kraul to the ground. Oromis flung a javelin into another Kraul’s carapace. Petra blasted another with a spell of fire. The ambush had been successful, but only one Kraul was dead. The others, though injured and angry, were still alive. And the spider was awake. She hissed, “Food!” and created a cloud of darkness around her.
Hebo quickly assessed the situation and cast his spells to help us. Petra and I moved along the ceiling, she throwing spells into the cloud of darkness around the spider while I aimed and killed another Kraul. Ezio, Oromis, and Luna attacked the others while we dodged the spider. After a moment, Petra’s spell landed and the spider fell to the ground. The darkness around her dissipated and we could see her more clearly. She carried a large greatsword and a massive longbow. And she was very angry.
The Kraul miraculously missed Hebo due to his hiding. They instead focused on Oromis, trading blow for blow. More arrows, spells, and bullets rained down on them. We heard a bell toll. Luna’s spell struck the Kraul down. Only the drow spider remained, but she was angrier than ever. She hissed and spit, slashing at Oromis. The dwarf could not handle it. His axe fell to the ground as he crumbled beneath the final blow, blood spilling at his feet. The spider hissed in triumph
Oromis survived. The spider had not seen Hebo. Hebo snuck up to our spiky-armored comrade and whispered healing words to him. He arose in a fiery rage, picked up his axe, and charged the spider again. From my place on the ceiling, I protected him with a spell of sanctuary, but the spell was not enough. The spider was fueled by some deep hatred of us, and struck him down again, but not before Oromis embedded his axe into her body.
She searched for her next victim and chose Luna. Luna escaped her wrath with a quick teleportation spell. The spider bore down onto Ezio next, but not before it shot at me with an arrow in the process. Ezio, however, is perhaps more nimble than any of us. They traded blows until he began to lead her down another path away from the rest of us while Petra, Luna, and I fired at her from afar.
All the while, Hebo again saved Oromis with his magic. Oromis was severely weakened, but was in a rage again. White hot smoke seemed to erupt from his body, giving him an eerie glow in the light of my torch. He threw his last javelin, impaling the spider. Only then did she realize what she was up against. The spider had been ravaged in a matter of minutes. Oromis’s weapons were still embedded in her. Arrows and gunshot wounds decorated her flank. Burn marks scored her exoskeleton. Her black blood was painting the rocks wherever she went, and she knew she could not face us any longer.
To our dismay, Hebo had moved to protect the captive people. In doing so, he put himself in the spider’s path of escape. Hebo survived the attack, but only because the spider was so greatly injured. Hebo fell unconscious, but not dead. Something inside each of us burned. Luna and I sent our last attacks at her as she fled. With a strange guttural cough, the spider suddenly fell to the ground. One final bullet in the head sealed her fate.
Ezio and Luna quickly bound Hebo’s wounds. Hebo would live, and my companions thanked the gods for it. One of the captives was indeed the farmer we were seeking. “Oh, Hebo,” he said softly. The farmer and the other captives were lucky to be alive. My companions fed them and gave them water. We recovered some weapons from the Kraul and got ready to return to the surface. Before we left, Ezio discovered that the creature was in fact a drider, a strange cross between a large spider and a drow. It carried with it a scroll of unreadable letters. We collected the legs of the spider, and its greatsword before we began our ascent back to the world of light.