The old man, who introduced himself as Raghunath, the owner, looked him up and down. He had likely been expecting a seasoned mercenary, not a slim teenager. "Them spiders... they ain't like rats, boy. Last fella who tried, big burly man from the Hall, came out screaming. Said the venom don't kill, it just... unmans you. Makes you a puppet of pain. You sure you got the stomach for it?"
"I'm sure," Aryan said, leaving no room for debate.
Raghunath sighed, the sound like a tired bellows. He had likely paid the Mercenary Hall's fee and had little choice but to trust who they sent. He pulled a large, heavy iron key from his pocket. It was rusted and ancient. "Cellar entrance is 'round back. Been locked for a decade. Gods know what's been breeding down there in that time." He handed the key to Aryan. "Bounty is fifteen gold coin. You clear 'em out, you get the coin. If I don't hear from you by sunrise tomorrow, I'll have the Hall post the bounty again."
The meaning was clear. If he failed, he would be left to rot.
Aryan took the key. Its cool, heavy weight felt real and final in his palm. He gave the old man a slight nod and walked around the side of the building, his steps silent on the overgrown path.
He found the cellar door set at an angle into the ground, a heavy slab of dark wood bound with rusted iron straps. The lock was stiff, but with a firm twist of the key and a shove from his shoulder, it groaned open. The hinges screamed in protest, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet afternoon.
A wave of cold, fetid air washed over him as he opened the door. It was a complex stench. The base notes were of deep damp and mildew, the smell of forgotten places. Over that was a dry, acrid scent that had a chemical sharpness to it, almost like ozone. His mind, Amit's mind, analyzed: it was the smell of concentrated venom and old exoskeletons. The smell of a predator's lair.
He peered down. A set of steep stone steps descended into complete, impenetrable blackness. He couldn't see anything, but he could feel the oppressive stillness of the air below.
He took the first step down, pulling the heavy door closed behind him, plunging himself into the darkness. The click of the latch echoed, sealing him inside. For a moment, there was only the sound of his own steady breathing.
Then he heard it.
It wasn't a single sound, but a multitude, a faint, dry, chitinous skittering from all around him. It was the sound of thousands of tiny legs crawling over stone and wood in the darkness.
Aryan's heart remained steady. He raised his right hand, and with a thought, sent a minuscule fraction of Qi to his fingertip. A tiny pearl of soft, white light bloomed, pushing back the oppressive gloom.
The light illuminated a nightmare.
The cellar was vast, larger than he had expected. But he could barely see the stone walls or the rotting wooden barrels that lined them. Everything was entombed in webbing. This was not the delicate work of a single spider, but a dense, layered architecture of silk. It coated the walls like calcified lungs, hung from the ceiling in thick, swaying shrouds, and carpeted the floor, muting all sound. The entire space had been transformed into a grey, silent tomb. The air was hazy with floating strands. The webbing led off into the deeper, darker corners of the cellar, hinting at a massive, ancient colony.
He took another step down, his foot landing on the stone floor with a soft crunch.
The skittering stopped.
A complete, predatory silence fell over the cellar. And then, in the deepest blackness ahead, two small, malevolent red lights blinked open. Another pair appeared to the left, closer this time. Then another above him. Then ten more. A hundred. Within seconds, the oppressive darkness was filled with a constellation of ruby-red eyes, all burning with the same, alien hunger. They were all fixed on the single source of light in their domain.
They had found him.