Chapter Fifteen

The empress spider chittered as it stabbed its black spear-like legs in Harmony's direction. Adric handled the medium man-sized ones dashing to the large openings in the wall of webbing as they stuck their bodies out, whacking them as quickly as possible before jumping to the next. Hyacinth handled the babies that were the size of dogs or cats. Shifting in size to allow him to squeeze into openings of varying sizes.

That left Harmony to handle the big one. [Small Armor] hadn't been neutered and still was able to draw some information from [Keen Investigative Awareness] and while it could block a powerful blow, avoiding being hit was still at the heart of the skill as she twisted with it, though not as graceful as she liked with the maid skill she often paired with it sealed. [High Kick] snapped out, buckling the front leg of the spider at the joint. Haz'el Ri might have sealed that as well if she had the limb length to make the skill more formidable. Knocking out one leg out of eight was barely crippling, you might as well cut a person's pinky off functionality wise, all it did was piss them off more.

It did mean she was close enough to try her new trick as the giant spider loomed over her, she dashed forward rolling under its jaws, and pressed her hand into its underside. [Cold Touch] left a frosty white handprint. It hurt less than if she used the base skill. The smaller spiders were a tad resistant to cold when they'd run across them in the woods. This was something new. Inside that ice, a skill was held frozen. A touch of [Final Silence] with [Renew Spirit] created a cage of ice preserving a [Disintegrate] ready to be released when it melted.

[Disintegrate] at its heart was a cleaning spell for this new profession. A quick application to clean up a small mess, or a constant application to take care of a larger problem. Body disposal came to mind, odd for a maid; but people had to hire more general cleaners for such messes and Harmony guessed an advanced cleaner like an eraser would be the kind to contact. That allowed her to channel a larger punch of the skill to be held inside the handprint. Old tricks not working, you needed new ones.

The spider's back leg slammed down as Harmony rolled under the body, its pointy tip stabbed through her calf pinning her down as it punched clean through. [Intruder Sense] gave them that full circle view meaning the damn spiders had no blindspot.

With her body pierced, Harmony leaned into the other new trick she'd learned on this journey through webbed woods. Her skills had more power when they were inside the container of her body. Before this tired sealing, there had been touches of having more control of the environment nearby, as if she owned it. This morning many of her routine wake-up abilities still worked, even the neutered beautician synergies that had failed upon trying to craft their armor. [Manipulate Dead] and [Disintegrate] cut through the leg right where it was embedded inside of her body. A loophole for some of the restrictions the seals placed on her, not that she could see too many uses for it outside of this particularly painful situation. The severing left the chunk stuck as a plug in her but allowed her to move before the other legs came crashing down.

The empress spider screamed, not from frustration but from the detonation of the [disintegrate] Harmony had slapped onto her body. Gravity helped drop much of the spider's guts. Death was inevitable but not immediate as she was still moving and acting like she was the biggest monster in the forest.

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She was wrong. Those little spiders would have swarmed the two of them if Hyacinth hadn't continued his steady extermination grind as Adric and Harmony delayed the bigger ones. But he was done, a large toad leaping up over her was nothing to the giant wounded empress. There, Hyacinth expanded, taking his place as the biggest monster around. He landed with a crack and pinned the giant spider down. She wasn't small, and Hyacinth didn't have the momentum to make her go splat. But he wasn't the only one not done. Adric's forward dash buried his sword in between its eight eyes. The force broke the makeshift weapon off at the handle but did its final job.

"Harmony, you're hurt!" He exclaimed as he rushed to her side.

"I'll live. Didn't want to burn [Stride] for a flesh wound." That had been another giant loss. The [Stride Before the Fall] copy lasted two seconds and took half a day to be usable again.

After extracting the piece of leg, [mend] and the light healing effects of the water that was the mimic reward was enough to merely leave her extremely sore with a slight limp she could fight through.

"Do you think there will be any reward for defeating that?" Harmony asked, looking into the dark cluster of webbing the empress had emerged from.

None of the other spiders had provided any rewards other than what could be gleaned from their bodies. Adric would need a new sword and the spider's legs looked sharp enough to work. Seven weapons from the undamaged legs. Assuming others were just as weaponless it might be a good way to curry favor at their group's gathering site.

"Has to be. Maybe empress spiders have hordes."

They'd more likely have mummified remains, but at this point, Harmony would take that.

"Groap!" Hyacinth croaked, resting on the empress like she was his throne. He'd be preening about this for a while.

Harmony extended her senses in that direction, but Hyacinth's nose was probably keener and he hadn't mentioned anything. "You might as well go in and explore. I'm going to see if I can make you a replacement weapon."

The legs were better for piercing than slashing, it was relatively easy to create four spears out of them by focusing on compressing where the leg widened into a uniform shaft. Adric's skills worked better with a cutting edge.

It was time to use her new revelations in a way different than an emergency escape, Slicing her palm open she connected it to the leg she worked. It might be cliche to use her blood and body as a necromancer, but that was never a reason to give up what worked. Slowly she made the edge and once it cut deeper she knew it worked. This would have been easy before, but grudgingly she admitted this was opening up new avenues and ideas for the future once she was out of here. A final application of [Mend] sealed her hand back up.

Adric returned with a chest and a goofy smile like he was a squirrel who found a nut or dog with a ball. This was a game, there would be rewards even though Harmony hadn't yet figured out the end goal. Throwing them into the woods naked and afraid, alone except for the bonds they brought with them. How was this a spectacle? There was also teamwork that had yet to begin.

Adric opened the chest. Inside was a small statue of a dog, written on it was the note - Congratulations! You've discovered an Immunity idol. You may use this on yourself or someone else after elimination votes are cast by fellow competitors but before they are revealed. Those votes do not count!

"What in the bleeding delving depths is this!" Harmony groaned even as she pieced the implications together.

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