I somehow managed to make it to shore as the last of the pier fell into the water. My shoulders heaved as I looked for my two comrades, wondering if they’d been watching my comical run.
I didn’t see them right away, so perhaps I’d been spared the embarrassment.
It struck me then that I could just have teleported straight to shore if I’d been thinking clearly. My unconscious desire to look cool as I walked away from the exploding ship set me up for failure.
The sound of swords clanging from behind a large rock brought me back to my senses.
“Huh. I guess a few pockets of resistance made it to shore?”
I took one last look at the burning wreckage as the ship slowly slipped below the water’s surface. Then I tightened my grip on the Holy Thunder Sword of Caladbolg, which had returned to its normal form, and ran toward the noise.
I found Ariane and Chiyome fending off a horde of pickaxe-wielding skeletons and another man-spider. This man-spider had the same bizarre body as the last one, and wore identical armor, but was armed with four large pickaxes—one in each hand.
Apparently, the second one was lurking here on the shore the whole time, although it didn’t seem to be faring well against Ariane and Chiyome. Since this man-spider lacked a mythril shield, Ariane was able to use fire spirit magic to great effect, causing the monster to slowly retreat.
Taking advantage of its blind spot, Chiyome flew up from behind, swinging her water-encased dagger. She lopped off one leg, then a second.
The man-spider screamed in agony as it tried to face Chiyome. Ariane took advantage of its distraction to sever both its human heads with her fire-engulfed blade. The strength instantly drained from the man-spider’s body, and it slumped to the ground. Its body began to fizzle and melt away, just like the other one.
The skeletons scattered. They had previously been attacking Ariane and Chiyome as a cohesive unit, but they suddenly seemed to have lost all focus, and simply attacked at random. The man-spider must have had some sort of control over them.
I slashed through the disorganized skeleton mob and called to the women. “Glad to see you’re safe, Ariane. I can’t believe there were two of those things.”
Ariane wiped blood from her sword and returned it to her sheath, dabbing at her brow. “As soon as we left the ship, skeletons came rushing out at us from the waterfalls.”
Chiyome looked down at the rather hideous sight of the melting man-spider and ran her nail against her blade, testing its sharpness. “Those legs were tough. It’d be difficult for a normal blade to cut through them.”
I looked at the remains of the skeletons around us. “It definitely seems like someone is pulling the strings behind all this.”
A number of skeletons wielded no weapons at all, and instead wore baskets on their backs. On closer inspection, it appeared that they’d been collecting the rune stones Ariane showed me earlier.
“It looks like they were mining these.” Chiyome frowned at the mounds of rune stones. “But what are they using them for? And why would they come all the way out here?”
Ariane furrowed her brow. “Elves have many uses for rune stones, but humans still haven’t developed the technology to harness their power safely. The closest thing that comes to mind is the Burst Spheres they used during the uprising in Houvan.”
“The ship’s already in pieces at the bottom of the lake, and I don’t see anyone else around, so I don’t think we’re going to find our answers here. We should probably start looking for a way out. What do you think, Ariane?”
The two women nodded in agreement.
“You’re right. The elders can perform a more thorough investigation.”
Chiyome’s ears twitched as she listened intently to our surroundings. “Why don’t we take a break, Miss Ariane? It doesn’t look like there are any more threats in the area. Besides, Ponta seems pretty frazzled.”
“Kyiiii…”
The poor fox looked exhausted from clinging tightly to Ariane during the intense battle, and more than a little terrified at the sight of the undead and the man-spider. Ariane pulled Ponta from her neck and hugged it tightly to her chest.
We moved to the lake edge and sat down to discuss our next move.
“Well, I could use Transport Gate to teleport us back to the cave opening, and we could start making our way through again. I still have a good memory of what the entrance looked like, so it shouldn’t be hard to get us out of here.”
Ariane fed some dried beans to Ponta, trying to perk up our furry companion. She shook her head. “That won’t work if we want to send a squad back here to investigate. We need to find a way up and out. We should camp here for the night. Aside from the undead we just fought, this chamber seems relatively safe.”
Chiyome nodded. “You’re right. It’s probably dark out already. Fortunately for us, we’ve got light and water here.”
I shrugged in agreement and took off my helmet, settling down for a quick break.