Chapter 9: Bathroom at an IBS conference

The river is crystal clear in the early morning light. Perfect for Pokin’.

“I thought you were takin’ a bath?” Mato asks from upstream where he is boiling our waterskins by dangling them a good distance above the fire, to keep them from burning.

“I am.” I reply. “But if there's giant spiders, then lord knows what might be in this river. I ain't getting eaten by a giant salmon.”

“A giant salmon?” Mato asks, incredulously.

“Ey we're playing a god game in the afterlife, don't act like you know what's possible.” I retort.

Mato nods up to the side as his eyes tilt up and mouth flattens in the universal expression of ‘fair enough’.

My Pokin’ Stick jabs into the river, a good 5 feet at its deepest, and though the current is lazy, the force being applied to the stick's full surface area nearly carries it off. [Tool proficiency: Pokin’ Stick™] keeps my grip firm and steady long enough to wedge it into the rocks and silt at the riverbed. When nothing comes out to bite the stick after scraping and digging around, I deem it safe enough.

I shed my boots, dress, and pants, but keep on the boxers as they could use a wash. I am about to strip off the leather and cloth eyepatch when I steal a glance at Mato. He's watching, obviously, but when he sees my look he gracefully picks up on my unspoken desire for privacy, unslinging his crossbow then turning and watching the surrounding trees. The patch comes off.

As I step into the chilly water and begin to scrub the dried vomit, blood, and ash from my various nooks and crannies, I consider Mato.

Things were tense last night, and I slept with one eye open. Seeing as I only have the one eye, I didn't sleep well. This morning, the atmosphere is a little more relaxed, if cautious and reserved. The geezer seems easy-going enough, on the quieter side but convivial, and we share an understanding that it's likely for the best that we work together. Whether or not we will trust each other is yet to be seen.

I stew on this long enough for all the disgustery to get removed from my personage. Leaving the water no longer smelling like the bathroom at an IBS conference, I put my eyepatch back on and walk back over to the fire to dry off. Mato turns as he hears me approach.

“So,” I say. “What's the plan?”

Mato shoulders the crossbow and begins checking the boiling water, then speaks. “Haven't explored much. But the webbing gets thicker to the northeast. This river goes north. The question is, do you want to go towards the spiders, or away?”

I begin poking the logs and coals with my stick. Feeling cold, I put another small branch on the fire.

“So far this place has largely stuck to the tropes and flow of a game.” I say. “I don't know if that will continue to hold true on the final floor, or in the Wider World, but on this floor that probably means that if you're seeing enemies, you're going in the right direction.”

I omit my suspicions that there will be some big ‘boss’ spider queen that we'll have to kill to move on. Especially since bosses in games usually drop or guard some of the best loot. Whether that's because I don't want to learn if this guy is greedier than he is friendly, or because I want it all for myself, I can’t quite identify.

“Hmm.” He replies, untying the rope the waterskins hang from. Then, holding them by the rope, he cools them in the river.

“I can't say I'm too familiar with video games, but I doubt we'll be gettin’ out of here without fightin’, and I much prefer the devil we know. North it is.”

Packing up our gear and putting out the fire, we see movement much farther south, and watch as a giant toad leaps from the river onto the riverbank on the other side.

Mato and I share a look, before I crack a smile and say “Told ya so.”

Mato turns away and shakes his head as he starts walking north along the river. He speaks over his shoulder.

“Still wasn't a salmon.”

***

Two hours of hiking along the riverside, watching the trees slowly get smothered in webs, seeing distant canopies shake as something moves among them, and the river begins to wind back onto itself. Mato takes point, and begins leading me northeast, deeper into the woods.

Eventually, Mato holds up a hand to stop us, then waves me to get close.

I whisper, “what–” before Mato's hand shoots out and quietly covers my mouth. He points forward and up, and I look up to see a long, spindly spider with a bulbous abdomen stop its spinning of webs among the trees and twitch. My voice must've vibrated the web slightly.

Mato motions for us to go wide, circle back and around, as he begins slowly walking backwards, keeping an eye on the giant spider. I carefully follow suit, eye flitting about trying to avoid touching any webs, before—

Crunch

My leg jerks back from where it fell into the hollow egg-sac buried beneath the ground.

Huh, so that’s what those look like.

Immediately, hand-sized and pale infantile spiders begin racing up my leg. I begin smacking and crushing them with my bare hands, suddenly incredibly grateful that I kept my pants tucked into my boots so they can't crawl up and inside my pantlegs. Mato quietly curses, before turning back to the web-spinning spider now charging through the branches towards us. He fires a bolt in sync as I punch a [Magic Missile] into the horde, bursting one like a zit.

Overkill, single target, shouldn't waste the mana on the small ones. I go back to smacking.

I wince and flinch, doing my best impression of an epileptic Irish step dancer while trying to shake them off as they bite my legs. [Magic Missile] is overkill, [Light] won’t do anything, so that leaves [Tripping Roots].

In my head I beg and plead to the roots, reaching out one arm as if using the force to telekinetically pull them from the earth, and the roots are all too happy to punish the invasive species fucking up their forest. Thick tubes break from the ground, wrapping around individual spiders. Over a dozen are briefly restrained before they wiggle themselves free.

“Fuck!” I shout-whisper.

I look to where Mato is firing bolts into the large spider above him, one of his legs webbed down to the ground. Then, I look back to the hole that the horde of baby spiders are coming from. I cast [Tripping Roots] again, this time asking them to twist and knot within that opening. Despite the plant’s enthusiasm, I feel a great resistance as I attempt to get the roots to do something other than trip, and feel more mana being siphoned away, leaving a feeling like the emptiness in your stomach once you vomit. Then, the roots split through the sac, twisting and knotting among themselves, sealing off the foot shaped hole. I can see the spiders beginning to dig around them, but for now, the tide has stopped.

Swapping the slapping and smacking duties to the hand with my Pokin’ Stick, I punch out with my empty hand, firing [Magic Missile] after [Magic Missile] into the large spider descending towards a stuck Mato. He stands ready with his knife drawn and looks surprised when the spells start impacting.

My missiles are less effective, as proper boxing form is hard to do while you're being devoured by spiders, but combined with Mato's bolts, the spider dies, falling directly onto Mato before he tosses it off.

I hurry over to him, smacking the last of the little ones off of my ass as I pull the shortsword from my bag and carefully cut away the webbing around his legs.

I point towards the nest and whisper “I used a spell to seal it, but they're digging around it. I'm gonna cut a small opening to funnel them and we can kill them one at a time.”

Mato finishes reloading his crossbow, shaking the webbing from his boots, and nods.

I jab my shortsword into the roots, feeling slightly sorry for betraying them, and open a small hole for the spiders to wriggle through. A few at a time they trickle through, as Mato and I pick them off one by one. When none seem to remain, Mato turns to me and whispers in a stern and urgent voice.

“Were you bit?”

“What do you think?” I snap back before moderating my tone. “Yeah, a bunch.”

“Strip.” Mato demands.

“What?”

“I’ve never been bit by these things. Baby spiders aren’t usually venomous, but they also aren’t usually huge. I gotta see them bites, now ain’t the time for modesty.”

Reluctantly I shirk off the pants, wincing as it brushes against the bites. For Mato's part, he doesn’t even blink when I have to hike up the skirt of the dress, or even when I gotta drop the boxers so he can see a bite on my ass cheeks.

“Yep, inflamed, that’s got some venom in it.” Mato confirms. I’m at first concerned, but I watch as he digs through his bag and pulls out a small bottle of translucent red liquid. A healing potion.

He cuts a small strip of cloth from his shawl, and wets it with the potion, then moves to dab my bites with it.

“I can do this part myself.” I whisper, taking the cloth from him. I dab the bites, and grit my teeth as I feel a terrible burning turn to itching before the wounds ooze, scab over, and flake off.

“Thanks.” I mutter, pulling up my pants.

“Don’t mention it.” Mato replies, packing things away. He looks back up once my pants are on.

“Seriously, don’t mention it.”

We trek on for another 3 hours, carefully avoiding nests and spider activity, ducking as a group of jumping spiders leaps from tree to tree above us, and after a few close calls, we come upon an old forgotten dirt road through the forest. Overgrown, and with old webbing draping across it, it winds deeper to the northeast. Down the road, dilapidated and torn apart with thick web bridges entering its windows, is a roadside inn. We watch for a moment as its current guests skitter and crawl in and out. Silently, we decide to approach.