Shadowborn

Chapter Twenty-Two: Elisa

Even descending into the disgusting and dark sewers, Elisa couldn’t stop smiling. It wasn’t because she’d finally found a group willing to take her spider hunting to get some levels, nor was it because she had a pouch full of her inventions hanging on her hip, ready and waiting to be used. No, it was because she could still feel Cynthia’s lips on hers. The chaste kiss Cynthia had planted on her before she’d descended with this party down into the bowels of Anford.

She hadn’t even realized Cynthia liked her that way. The feeling was more than mutual, and she couldn’t wait to explore the possibilities of that kiss further. After she got back to the surface, of course. As if he could read her mind, the leader of the party, Camden, said, “hey, girl, get your head out of the clouds. Focus on what we’re doing, not your girlfriend.”

He was kind of a dick, but he was willing to take her along on his expedition. For a hefty price, of course, but there were few more lucrative experience sources than spider exterminating. He was tall and broad, and he had a hammer that probably weighed as much as she did. He intimidated the shit out of her, and he knew it. Levels were levels, though, and if she was ever going to pay off her debts and get her and Cynthia out of this city then she had to take risks. Risks like taking a utility class into spider-infested sewers.

The other fighter in the group, Finnegan snorted. “Can’t really blame her, Cam. I’d be fantasizing about that tight ass too.” To prove his point, he smacked the ass of their fourth, Tiana, and left his hand there to give it a few good gropes. She grimaced like she would rather be anywhere else, but she made no move to stop him.

Camden was a dick, but Finnegan was an outright pig. Unfortunately he was lightning fast with his dual swords and a cousin to Camden, so he was on the mission same as her. Tall and oily and very handsy when it came to Tiana.

Elisa had heard of what some of the female adventurers went through, but seeing it in person was an entirely different story. Tiana was just another in a long line of them willing to put up with more than a little sexual harassment if it meant levels, money, and reputation with the guild. The only real way to escape whatever social class you were born into, and it wasn’t made easy by anyone along the way.

She wore her dark auburn hair in a low tail and had piercing turquoise eyes that seemed to stare more than they looked. She was tall and incredibly shapely, with a body Elise would kill for, which probably helped and hindered her in equal amounts. Helped her to get onto groups, but put her in the sights of creeps like Finnegan.

Elise, on the other hand, was short, gangly, and while she was somewhat proud of her rear she had little to work with upstairs. Her dull brown hair was short and hastily tied back since she could rarely be bothered to mess with it. She was the kind of girl that guys (and girls) hardly looked at, especially with beauties like Tiana around. After spending just a little time with Finnegan, she was suddenly thankful for it, and equally guilty she felt that way.

“Do you normally go this deep to hunt Valax Spiders?” Elise asked uncertainly, trying to take her mind off the horrible state of the world.

“No,” Camden said shortly. “But the infestations have been popping up more and more all over Anford. The city is paying more and more to anyone willing to exterminate them, which means more and more adventurers are heading into the sewers to cash in, which means we have to go further in than normal to try and torch some of the egg nests.”

“Just stand back and leave the work up to us,” Finnegan drawled. He threw an arm over Tiana. “We’ll handle the bigger ones, and Tiana can deal with the little bastards no problem. We’ve done this a hundred times now.”

Elise clutched her pack, trying to hold onto the warm feeling of Cynthia’s lips on hers. The soft smile full of promise on the face of someone who was usually so reserved. The creeping sensation that she was being watched threatened to drown it out entirely. One of those was much nicer to think about than the other.
“Here we are.” Camden knelt down to pull at some webs stretched over a hole. “Big enough to be worth our time. Let’s go.”

He and Finnegan lowered themselves down, and Tiana wasn’t far behind. From the grimace she shot towards Elisa, it was evident Finnegan was "helping" her down. Elise followed as well, but not before she pulled some chalk out and marked the entrance. Just in case.

She tried not to think about the fact that she was lowering herself into a dark scary hole, but it was hard not to flinch when she felt hands on her lower half. They were thin and gentle, and once she was down she realized Tiana had been the one to help her. She gave the girl an appreciative nod and turned to where Camden was lighting a torch.

“Normally we have Tiana hold the torch, but you’ll do,” Camden said, handing it to Elisa.
Finnegan snorted, then spit. “Just try not to drop it. Some of these webs are liable to be flammable.”

They closed ranks with Tiana behind them and drew their weapons. Only then did Tiana seem to relax a fraction. It wasn’t lost on Elisa that she felt safer facing death than the hands of her party members. “Actually, I’ve got something better than a torch,” Elisa said.

She handed the torch to Tiana, who watched with a raised brow as the shorter girl pulled out a short, thin piece of hexagonal metal. She twisted it, then pulled the ends apart to reveal a glass vial filled with a liquid that glowed brighter than the torch. More consistently, too, without the flickering of flame. She handed one to Camden. “You can clip it on your belt so you don’t have to worry about me being around corners. I’ve got two.”

He raised a brow. “Not bad, girlie.” He clipped it on and Elise gave her second one to Finnegan.

“It’s mana charged, but I’ve topped those off. They should be good for about three hours.” Her mana-lamps were one of her earlier inventions, and they were some that she was particularly proud of.

Finnegan clipped his on without a word. He just glanced at Tiana with a wink. “You know the drill.”
She just nodded. She’d rarely said more than a few words since Elisa had met her. They crawled out of the hole and into a larger tunnel. One large enough for even Camden to not have to stoop at all. He and Finnegan walked side by side, which really worried Elisa. She’d done her research before joining this expedition, and it was incredibly rare for Valax spiders to get much larger than a dog in Anford. Not that a dog-sized spider wasn’t fucking terrifying on its own, but this tunnel felt much larger than it needed to be.

It was nearly an hour before they finally found a nest. Finnegan tossed a firebomb into the nest and a horde of spiders descended upon them. They had black, bulbous bodies with yellow markings on them and long thin legs. The front two of which were more than sharp enough to cut flesh, even on the tinier ones. Panic seized Elisa’s throat, but the other three were ready. Finnegan and Camden stood back while Tiana raised a hand. She threw out two spinning blue disks that shot out darker blue threads of mana that twirled around it them like blades.

She swept them through the hordes of the smaller spiders, painting the walls with the green blood of the small army of creatures. She effortlessly mowed them down, and it wasn’t until four that were nearly a foot long darted out that the other two got involved. Camden swiped two aside with one swing of his hammer, and Finnegan darted forward and killed each of the other ones with a single swipe. They continued like that, slaying the spiders that came at them until no more came from the smoking nest.

Camden wiped some of the slimy green blood off his chin. “See? Nothing to it.”

Elisa let out a nervous laugh. If that was as bad as things were going to get, then maybe she was foolish for bringing so many gadgets. They burned out two more nests that went more or less the same, though the third time there were twice as many of the larger spiders. Each time, Elisa made sure to mark the direction they were going in chalk on the wall if for no other reason than to make sure she could get out if she got separated. During the fourth nest, a larger one came out. It was nearly the size of a dog, and it took a chunk out of Camden’s leg before Tiana blasted it with a bolt of magic that turned it into paste.

“Fuck! Fucking spiders!” Camden spat, checking his leg. It wasn’t a deep gash, but it was bleeding heavily enough that they took a breather. He drank an antidote that would counter the spider’s venom while Finnegan found a chunk of rock to sit on. He shook a bottle of glowing blue liquid—a mana potion, it seemed—at Tiana. She grimaced, but she still went to sit in his lap. Only after he’d started fondling her breast did he give her the potion.

Just watching it made Elisa want to vomit, but Camden barely even acknowledged it. “Four nests isn’t bad, but I want to keep going. I’ve never heard of tunnels this big before, and I want to see where they go. If we find some juicy information, then we can sell it when we get back to the guild.” He looked to Tiana, who was doing her best to ignore Finnegan’s hand in her robe. “You’ve got the way out memorized, right?”

“Of course,” she said, her voice strained. “Though it would be dangerous to go any deeper. We don’t have Lilianna with us, after all.”

A cry slipped out of her before she clenched her jaw shut. Finnegan must have pinched her nipple hard from the way she glared at him. “We’re fine. We don’t need her whining.”

“We can keep going,” Camden insisted. He stood and tested his leg. “Four is nothing.” He jerked a thumb at Elisa. “Not even enough to get this one a level.”

“And that last spider?” Finnegan’s other hand went lower, and she grit her teeth. “It was larger than any we’ve come across so far.”

“It’s fine. We handled it, didn’t we?” Finnegan argued.

One one hand, the idea of more large spiders set Elisa’s flesh crawling. On the other, she’d paid a lot of money for experience. “I can try to help. I brought some more gadgets just in case I’m needed.”

Finnegan looked at her critically. “No offense, but we’ve got this. You just stay out of the way and try not to get bit.”

“Fin’s right,” Camden said. He picked up his hammer. “You’re paying to leech, not to get in the way. Now come on, Fin. Pull your fingers out of Tiana so we can get moving.”

Finnegan snorted, but he let Tiana up. She hastily set her clothes right while the other two started further down the tunnel. Unable to bear it any longer, Elisa stepped up beside the taller girl. “Is it really okay for him to handle you like that?”

Tiana just shrugged. “I made a deal with him before I knew how much of a disgusting creep he was. My class gets benefits when I’m aroused, so I told him he could feel me up whenever as long as I got a bigger-than-normal cut.”

Elisa’s eyes widened. “How the hell did you end up with a class like that?”

“Eh, jilled myself one too many times during my magic classes.” She shot a half-grin at Elisa. “I spent a lot of time with in bed with my boyfriend whenever I wasn’t training up my main class. Guess the gods took notice.”

“Do you ever regret it?”

“Sure, any time he starts sticking fingers in down there, but it gives boosts my spells and helps with my regen so I can hardly complain. Soon as my contract is up I’ll find someone who isn’t quite so…” she rubbed the nipple he’d twisted, “rough. I prefer a gentler touch.”

Suddenly her attire made a bit more sense. Her robes had no sleeves, and the sides were cut very low to give easy access to her front. The skirt that went down past her knees was slit on the sides, exposing her thighs when she walked, and Elisa had yet to see any sign of underwear of any kind.

“That’s…gonna be hard to stop thinking about,” she admitted.

Tiana just grinned. “Not that I’d mind letting a cutie like you cop a feel if you’re interested, but don’t you already have a girl? Or are you a harem kinda gal? I sure hope it’s door number two, there’s just something fun about sharing.”

Elisa had no idea how to deal with the heat in her face right now. “Um, I don’t know, actually. That was kinda unexpected. I like her, a lot, but I don’t know if we’re exclusive or even really dating or anything like that.”

“First loves.” Tiana shook her head. “Adorable. Well, if you decide you want to have some fun before you get locked down or you two go looking for a third to have some fun with, let me know. Girls are always better than creeps like Finnegan. All the guys who aren’t don’t want anything to do with someone like me.” She said the last part somewhat bitterly enough that Elisa both wanted to know more and didn’t want to pry in equal amounts.

Elisa liked Cynthia. She really liked Cynthia. She’d also never had someone as attractive as Tiana be so brazen with her before. She had no idea how to respond, but luckily Camden saw them lagging behind. “Tiana!” he barked. “Get up here, we’ve got another nest to clear.”

They cleared another two nests, which brought Elisa up to fifteen. She felt a thrill when it happened, but she didn’t mention it to the others. She was afraid Camden would call it the second she got a level. She put her points into Arcane. Thanks to [A Mother’s Love], which let her infuse mana into her creations, and [Deadly Inventor], which increased the effectiveness of infused lethal gadgets based on her Arcane stat, she finally had a reason to do so.

Then things went wrong on the next nest. While Tiana was keeping the smaller spiders away, one dropped onto her shoulder from the ceiling. So quickly Elisa wouldn’t have seen it if her eyes weren’t constantly drawn to the exposed flesh on her side and the way her breasts came close to slipping out every time she swung an arm to cast a skill. It bit her before she could knock it off, and whatever venom was in the little bastard sent her right to the floor writhing in pain. Her disks vanished and the mass of spiders—ranging in the size of Elisa’s hand to so small she could barely track them—surged forward towards the other two.

Elisa lunged forward to help Tiana, though not before she reached into her pouch and pulled out two silver spheres by touch. Either was about three inches in diameter, and they both had two grooves on either side and a button in between them. She clicked the button on either of them and tossed them into the mass of spiders. After a two-second delay, they both started shooting fire from the grooves, spinning and rolling themselves deeper into the mass while they billowed flame that stuck to and melted any spiders they touched.

She didn’t stop to watch the aftermath. She knocked the spider off Tiana, who’d started convulsing with her face twisted in pain, and smashed it with a booted foot. Then, with adrenaline charged, trembling fingers, she poured one of the general antidotes she’d purchased down Tiana’s throat.

The others were frantically trying to get the spiders off of them, so Elisa pulled out another of her Spitter Spheres and lobbed it. This one started billowing an aerosol that was water, peppermint extract, and vinegar. Not a pleasant smell, but it hit the spiders like a wave and made many of them run back into their holes.

“Fuck! I fucking hate spiders!” Finnegan yelled, still trying to pat the last of them off. He quickly downed his own antidote, but Camden was still benefitting from the one he’d taken a moment ago. “What the fuck was that, Tiana? Shit!”

“She got bit by that little red one,” Elisa said. Tiana was still convulsing, so she lifted the taller girl’s head and put it in her lap.

“Red recluse, looks like,” Camden said. He smeared what was left of the body along the ground with his boot.

“Nasty bastards. Venom hurts like hell, but she’ll be fine with an antidote.” He cut a glare at Finnegan. “Not going to make her work for this one, too, are you?”

“No need,” Tiana panted. “Elisa was kind enough to give me one. I’ll be fine once I catch my breath.” Then, loud enough so that only Elisa could hear, “thank fuck I don’t have to suck him off again. I owe you one.”

Camden looked at her with a frown. “Elisa to the rescue. What the fuck was that skill you used and why do I smell like spoiled toothpaste?”

Tiana made no move to stand just yet, and Elise was more than happy to have the woman’s head in her lap. “Not a skill. Spitter Spheres.” She pulled out another of the spider repellents. “I made them. They dispense anything I can make into an aerosol, and if that aerosol is flammable then they can spit fire. And spiders hate peppermint and vinegar, so I figured I’d make a few that could drive off the smaller ones.”

He looked begrudgingly impressed. “Not bad. Might have to bring you down here a second time. Or, at least, buy some of those off you.”

Elisa could not put into words how badly she didn’t want to go anywhere with Finnegan again, but she was warming up to Tiana. Still, spreading the word about her gadgets had been a part of why she was doing this. “I’d be more than happy to work out a deal after we get out.”

With a sigh, Tiana finally got unsteadily to her feet. She knelt down by the green and red stain. “What I want to know is what the hell a red recluse is doing down here. Valax spiders are a highly invasive and territorial species. They should have killed any other spiders they found down here.”

“Who the fuck cares?” Finnegan asked. “A spider is a spider. I say we find a few more nests and chuck more of her little fire balls into them, then get the fuck topside.”

“It’s still worth mentioning to the guild,” Tiana insisted. “The rate at which the Valax are burrowing is already getting out of control, this is just another instance of strangeness.”

“Fine, fine,” Camden said. “We’ll mention it. Elisa, how many of those spheres do you have?”

“Eight more fire, five spider repellents, ten wire-webs, ten boom-gas, four false daylights, and four light spitters,” she rattled off.

Camden whistled, and Tiana grinned. “Damn, girl. You really did come prepared,” she said.

“Great, fantastic,” Finnegan whined. “Can we move on now? I want to get back before it gets too late.”

At Finnegan’s urging, they started down the tunnel once more. They found another of the nests, and Elisa’s spitters worked wonders in both torching them and burning up many of the spiders that swarmed because of it. This time, she spotted the red recluse scurrying on the ground before it could get to Tiana and managed to smash it.

Then a wave of the dog-sized spiders charged from holes in the walls hidden by the webs. Two shot towards Tiana, but the others all rushed Camden and Finnegan. Tiana raised a hand and four curving bolts shot out. They all took a different twisting path through the air before slamming into the spider, one after another into the exact same spot, until its carapace imploded. Then the other slammed into a wall she conjured. Then she closed her open hand and shot out a thundering pulse that sent it sprawling. She yanked one of her still-spinning disks over and sliced it neatly in half.

Camden was faring a little better than his cousin, He swung his hammer in wide, sweeping arcs that crunched carapaces and snapped legs wherever it hit. There were still dozens of cuts across his legs and arms, but Finnegan was being swarmed. His two blades darted in and out in a blur, but he lacked the wide, crowd controlling attacks Camden wielded. By the time Tiana finished off the last two with her disks, he was covered in red and green blood.

He sunk to one knee. “What in the ever loving fuck was that? They’ve never done that before!”

Tiana sank down on her haunches, breathing hard. “That was an ambush, no two ways about it. I’ve never seen Valax’s that big before, either. We should get out of here and tell the guild. This is more than just aggressive breeding, we’re talking about actual tactics here. That suggests intelligence.”

“Either way, we can talk after we’re out of here. Fin, give Tiana a mana pot. And no, she doesn’t have to do anything for it,” he said before Finnegan could even open his mouth. He just shrugged and tossed the potion to her, then tossed a healing potion to Camden.

He pulled one out for himself, walking past Tiana and Elisa. “You know, Tiana, if you want some of the really good stuff, you could always let me have a go at that—”

He never got to finish the thought.

Finnegan took two steps past Elisa and there was a flash of black and a soft snickt. A spray of something warm hit Elisa. She had just enough time to realize that the same crimson that now coated her had sprayed all over Tiana as well before she heard a thud.

She looked down to see Finnegan’s head—still leering lecherously—rolling between them. Then his body hit the ground, and they all looked up at the spider that had erupted out of another hidden hole. This one was big. Bigger than any dog Elisa had ever seen by a significant margin. It crept out of the floor, its front two legs raised to attack again. It stood twice as high as the dog-sized spiders had, and it had terrifyingly massive fangs to match.

“NO!” Camden screamed.

Elisa and Tiana both scrambled back, but Camden hurled himself forward with a scream. He activated a skill and slammed his hammer into the spider’s carapace hard enough to crack it before it sliced deep into his leg in retaliation. It lunged forward to finish him off, but Tiana slammed five more bolts of force into the spot where Camden had cracked. It ruptured, spraying bright green blood everywhere, but the monster didn’t go down.

Tiana cursed and held out both hands. The spider plunged its leg through Camden’s side and he screamed. It lifted its other leg, but before it could bring it down a beam of blue energy erupted from Tiana’s palms. It pierced right through the spider’s cracked armor and out the other side. Immediately, it went limp.

Cursing and screaming, Camden managed to pull the leg out of him. Tiana sprinted to Finnegan’s body, fumbling through his pockets until she came out with a pouch of vials. She pulled out a red one and hurtled for Camden, pouring it down his throat.

She looked back to Elisa, who was still frozen to the floor in shock. “Don’t just stand there, help me get him up!”

Elisa stumbled forward, stopping long enough to unclip her mana lantern from Finnegan’s belt, then helped Tiana lift Camden to his feet. He choked back an angry sob when he saw his cousin’s corpse, but there was no way we were dragging him and an injured Camden all the way to the surface.

“Move, now!” Tiana ordered. No sooner had they started to drag Camden back the way they came than more of the dog-sized spiders started emerging from the walls. Elisa tossed fire spitters behind her while they ran, hoping it would slow them down. Tiana shot more and more bolts of force until she cursed, then fished out a mana potion and downed it with a grimace.

Most of the spiders seemed wary of the fire, and Tiana scared the rest off with more spells, but she was running out of mana and her attacks were losing their power. Raw fear tried to paralyze Elisa with every step, but Tiana kept urging her on. Her breath was starting to come in desperate gasps and there was a stitch in her side, but they were making progress. The worst of the spiders seemed to be behind them. They were going to make it.

Then she fell.

It was as if suddenly one of her legs wasn’t working anymore. Camden kept going, ripping away from her, and she hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind from her lungs. When she looked back, she saw that her foot was tangled in a thick web that must have been lying in wait. She tried to tug her foot free, but it was stuck fast. The web was glued to her boot, and she wasn’t near strong enough to pull it loose.

She tried to get free, but it was no use. She looked to where Camden and Tiana had stumbled to a stop and turned back. “Help me!” she cried.

Camden took one look down the way they came, and whatever he saw made him shake his head. “Fuck that, she’s done for. Tiana, let’s go.”

“We can’t leave her!” Tiana cried.

He just looked at Elisa with pity in his eyes. “Sorry. For what it’s worth, I hope it’s quick.” Then he turned and ran down the hall.

Tears fell from Elisa’s eyes. She didn’t want to die. She wasn’t ready to die. Cynthia was waiting for her. She had to get back, to ask her about that kiss, to kiss her more, to tell her about the crush she’d had on her friend for years now. She went back to yanking helplessly, sobs wracking her body.

Then Tiana was there. She pulled out a dagger and started cutting Elisa’s boot away. “Fucking assholes, the both of them. Shit.” Together they managed to pull Elisa to her feet, but the spiders were almost on them.

“My bag!” Elisa cried. Her tools—her only weapons—were out of reach. Caught in another of the sticky webs.

“Leave it or I leave you!” Tiana yelled, dragging Elisa by the arm. Already the light from the lamp on Camden’s hip was long gone, but Elisa still had the one she’d taken from Finnegan’s corpse.

Her foot stung from the sharp rocks that she no longer had a shoe to protect herself from, but she kept pushing herself forward. Tiana had come back for her. She just had to ignore the sea of skittering sounds and hisses that came from behind them.

“There! I marked the entrance!” Elisa cried.

“I swear, if I never see another spider again, it’ll be too fucking—”

The ground under them disappeared. One moment they were running, the next they were falling into the darkness. The lamp slipped from her grasp and tumbled off into the rock that fell alongside them. Elisa was weightless for a brief moment, then pain flared through her body when she slammed down to the ground. In pitch black darkness. Her leg folded under her and something cracked. She screamed until someone clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Shut the fuck up unless you want every fucking spider in these tunnels to know exactly where you are!” Tiana hissed.

“My—my leg,” Elisa sobbed. “It’s fucked. I can’t—gods, it hurts!”

Tiana cursed. “The light. You had a light. Where—there!”

Doing her best to muffle the sobs that wracked her body, Elisa looked for the light. It was maybe two dozen feet away, up an incline, but it was intact. “Okay, stay right here, I’ll go get the light and we’ll get a healing potion in you, then we figure out how to get out of here. Alright?”

“I—I—” Oh gods. A healing potion wasn’t going to do much for a broken leg. Not fast enough to make a difference. She was going to die down here in the dark. So far away from the light above. So far away from Cynthia. “You should go. You won’t make it if you’re hauling me through the dark. Y—you can find help and come back for me.”

Even if she didn’t believe that for a second, but it was better than admitting she was as good as dead. That she’d died the minute she’d been foolish enough to come down here. The tears started flowing and more pain throbbed through her leg. Her body went limp, as if it was suddenly a thousand pounds.

She felt Tiana’s hands on her face. “Fuck that. You’re going to be fine, you hear me? You’ve got that cute receptionist to get back to, so you’d better get ready for a little more pain. It’s gonna hurt like hell, but we’ll get out of this. Now, wait here.”

Elisa choked back another sob. She was grateful for Tiana, but she also didn’t want to watch this girl die trying to help her. She desperately found herself wishing she was strong enough to send her off on her own, but she was too afraid of dying alone and in pain to do it. Tiana’s heat disappeared, then she was silhouetted in the light. She crept over and scooped it up, then ran back to where Elisa was waiting.

She almost made it back when she slowed to a stop. Her face went slack, and all color drained from her cheeks. The lantern fell from her hands and rolled down the incline. Her eyes were fixed on something behind Elisa, and silent tears began to trail down her cheeks. She fell to her knees and began to mutter a prayer.

Despite the fear and pain that threatened to consume her, Elisa turned to look over her shoulder at whatever was behind her. When she saw it, she knew for a fact that she was never getting out of here alive. There was no amount of wishful thinking or clever plays or fancy gadgets that could save her now.

The spider that loomed over her was massive. Twice the size of the one that had killed Finnegan. From where she sat, it must have been ten or fifteen feet tall. It’s body alone was bigger than Elisa, and it stood taller than any man ever could. It looked down at her with its many eyes and fangs the size of her forearm rubbing together. Its forelegs were like two swords as long as she was tall, and she knew if it chose it could cleave her in half without a second thought.

It raised a single leg, slowly and deliberately. Elisa didn’t even have it in her to scream at this point. All she could do was sit there and watch it slam its clawed leg down on the lantern, shattering it and sending the glowing liquid inside everywhere. Outside its container, the mana escaped in seconds. She didn’t want the last thing she saw in this world to be such a horrific monster, so she turned to take one last look at Tiana. Her eyes were closed, her face was turned towards the sky, and her mouth still moved in silent prayer. Then the last of the mana drained, and pitch black darkness descended.

So did the spiders.