"The passage!" Morrigan called, pointing toward a dark opening on the far side of the chamber. "There!"
We fought our way across the bone-littered floor, weapons swinging at anything that moved. The transformed humans were tough but not invincible. Solid hits would stagger them, and the bleeding effects from my dagger were clearly causing more damage than normal wounds.
One of them leaped at me from behind a pile of equipment, mandibles clicking. I rolled aside, slashing upward as he passed. The Kobold Fang opened his throat, and he collapsed in a pool of spreading ichor.
"Behind you!" Kira warned, her hammer crushing the skull of another attacker who'd been trying to flank us.
We burst through into the passage beyond, not stopping to see if we were being followed. The narrow tunnel echoed with our footsteps and the increasingly distant chittering of the transformed humans.
"They're not following," Morrigan observed after we'd put some distance between us and the chamber. "Why?"
"Maybe they can't," I panted, leaning against the wall to catch my breath. "Or maybe they don't need to. If we're really going to transform anyway..."
My small wound was definitely getting worse. The skin around it had taken on a grayish tinge, and I could feel something moving beneath the surface. Whatever was injected into us was spreading fast.
"We need to find a cure," Kira said grimly. "And fast."
"Look at this," Morrigan called from ahead, where the passage opened into a smaller chamber.
More expedition equipment was scattered here, but this looked different. More organized, like a temporary camp rather than the aftermath of a battle. Books and papers were spread across a makeshift table formed from stacked stones.
"Torrhen's journal," Morrigan said, picking up a leather-bound book. "And research notes."
I moved closer as she flipped through the pages, looking for anything useful.
"Here," she said, pointing to an entry dated two weeks before the expedition's official end. "Listen to this: 'The transformation venom is definitely magical in nature, but it follows biological principles. Jorik believes the source creature — what the locals call the Spider Queen — produces both the transformative agent and its antidote. Her ichor could theoretically reverse the process, but reaching her would require surviving her brood.'"
"So there is a cure," Kira said. "We just have to fight our way to it."
"'Five levels down,'" Morrigan continued reading. "'In the heart of the Sanctum. The Queen dwells in a vast web chamber, surrounded by her children. Approach will be nearly impossible."
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the dungeon's temperature. "How did that work out for them?"
"Not well, apparently." Morrigan flipped to the final entries. "The last note just says: 'The transformation has begun. May the gods forgive us for what we're about to become.'"
The passage sloped sharply downward from here, carved from living rock. The air grew thicker with each step, heavy with moisture and the smell of decay. Behind us, I could hear the transformed humans settling back into their lair, apparently content to wait for us to return as monsters.
"How are you two doing?" I asked quietly.
"Itchy," Kira replied grimly. "And I can feel... something in my blood. Like tiny things crawling around."
"The same," Morrigan confirmed.
The passage opened into a vast chamber unlike anything we'd seen before. The ceiling stretched up into darkness, supported by columns of webbing thick as tree trunks. Everywhere we looked, webs stretched between surfaces, some holding wrapped bundles that might once have been people.
And the sound, a constant chittering and clicking that echoed from every surface. The chamber was alive with movement.
"Sweet merciful gods," Kira breathed. "How many of them are there?"
Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Spiders of every size, from tiny scouts to massive warriors the size of horses. They moved through the webs with fluid grace, completely at home in this three-dimensional maze of silk and shadow.
At the far end of the chamber, partially hidden behind veils of webbing, I could make out what looked like a massive cocoon structure, easily the size of a house. Something moved within it, something large enough to make the thick webbing bulge outward.
"The Queen's lair," Morrigan whispered. "Has to be."
My trap detection skill was going crazy, highlighting dangers everywhere I looked. The webs weren't just highways for the spiders, they were trigger mechanisms. Step on the wrong strand, and every spider in the chamber would know exactly where we were.
"We need fire," I said, studying the web patterns. "Spiders hate fire, and all this webbing will burn fast."
"I've got oil," Morrigan said, pulling a small flask from her pack. "Emergency lamp fuel. Not much, but it should catch."
Kira checked her gear. "Flint and steel. And my hammer's got a striker edge if we need sparks."
"The problem is getting close enough to use it without alerting the whole nest," I said, my skill highlighting safe pathways through the webs. "Look, there are routes between the major web structures. If we move carefully..."
"How carefully?" Kira asked.
"Very. One wrong step and we're fighting every spider in this chamber at once." I pointed to a path that hugged the left wall. "That route avoids the major trigger webs, but we'll have to deal with the guards."
Even as I spoke, I could see them. Clusters of medium-sized spiders positioned at key choke points along the safer routes. Not enough to trigger a full alarm, but definitely enough to kill careless intruders.
"So we thin them out first," Kira said, hefting her hammer. "Quietly."
"Right. Morrigan, how much oil do we have total?"
She checked her supplies. "This flask, plus what's left in my lamp. Maybe enough to create two good fires if we're smart about it."
My Threat Assessment skill was painting a tactical picture of the chamber. The spiders followed predictable patrol patterns, and there were several structural weak points where fire could spread rapidly through the web network.
"Here's the plan," I said, pointing to specific locations. "We create a distraction fire here, at the chamber entrance. While the spiders respond to that, we circle around to this structural support and hit it with the second fire. The whole web system should collapse on this side of the chamber."
"And then?" Kira asked.
"Then we run like hell for the Queen's lair while everything's burning behind us."
"Sounds like a terrible plan," Morrigan observed.
"You have a better one?"
"No, but I wanted to acknowledge how likely we are to die horribly."