I chucked the guard’s bow and arrows to Miren and told her and Stephanos to sort out between them who got it, spread out the weapons so that anyone could take what they wanted. Jian was allowed to keep both scythes, as the panic on his face had been comical when he realized he’d just grabbed them, and he thought he might have them taken away.
There was also a ring of health, which boosted someone’s HP by a whopping twenty points, and a ring of improved sneak. I gave the sneaking ring to Lydia; it wouldn’t fit on Bane’s fingers, and she was undoubtably the loudest of the group, and needed the most help.
I left the others to argue over the ring of health as Bane and I walked off to discuss the information he’d gotten from the guard.
“There’s an hour to go to get to the main settlement,” he told me without preamble. “You said there was thirty-five in total, according to your quest, right?”
I pulled the details up and found that the locations had been updated as well.
You have received a Quest from your Goddess: ‘Keep your Word’
You have given your word to an ancient Cave Spider Queen, kill her enemies, grant her and her brood safety and food, and she will consider her Broken Oath to be renewed, binding her and all her brood to your orders and laws. You must kill thirty-five (35) Drow and their leader.
Drow Killed: 19/35
Locations Cleared: 1/3
Drow Leader Killed: 0/1
Reward: Oracle’s Freedom, Sworn Allegiance of One (1) Greater Cave Spider and her Brood, access to Cave Spider Silk, Cave Spider Nest Treasury and 50,000xp
Clearly the garden had been one of the areas I had to find and clear, so that was a relief. I told Bane and he nodded.
“That fits with what the guard said; he called this the ‘Bloom Garden’ and said there were dozens more Drow in the main settlement, I think he was trying to scare us, as he kept on about how they’d almost killed us with six. He did let slip that this was their only mage, though, and I believe that, considering how I ‘asked’ to be sure.”
“What are the other locations?” I asked and he shrugged.
“He said that there were only six of them in the bloom garden, some in the stables, and the others were spread out across the settlement and the paths leading to it. Maybe there’s something that the quest considers a location, which the Drow don’t?”
“Yeah, it’s from Jenae, so it’s probably more that the Drow don’t consider it, but that we would. Anything else you managed to get from him?”
“Just that they’re only an exploratory force, so they’re made up of fighters and scouts mainly, a single mage and leader, no noncombatants.” I let out a sigh of relief, having not even considered that the Drow might have their women and children with them.
“Wow dodged a bullet there, then,” I muttered and led him back to the others. “Okay people, according to the quest I have, there’s only sixteen left to face, plus the Drow leader. We’ve killed nineteen so far, but this is likely to be the end of the easy fights now; anything you can do to make yourself more deadly, now’s the time to do it. Here!” I said, passing the vials of poison to Stephanos, Miren, and Bane.
“This stuff is nasty shit; it’ll permanently lower your HP and Mana by ten points per second for sixty seconds, as well as doing a hundred points of damage when it first enters your victim. Be incredibly careful when you use it, unless you don’t mind losing seven hundred health and mana permanently. This shit is for the boss, and I suggest you dip your arrows and coat your daggers with it when the time comes.”
I passed around the rest of the potions I had, making sure to restock those who had used their health potions already. Thankfully, a few of the Drow had some as well, meaning we were all back up to three potions each. I also had four mana left after Arrin and I had shared what we had equally.
Lydia got the only Stamina potion we had left, as she drained hers the fastest, fighting in heavy armor.
We took a few minutes to talk, getting ourselves ready before setting off, Horkesh leading the way with her drones.
We passed though caves that showed more recent signs of passage now, the older occasional cart marks or long abandoned camps disappeared below the signs of regular footfall. Small side caves occasionally popped up. These were ignored out of hand, the spiders having searched them before we reached them, and we went on, the party occasionally muttering to each other as we progressed. Horkesh warned us that there was a branching in the tunnels up ahead, one path leading down, and the other up. The path that led down had much more movement along it, as well as signs of life. She dispatched spider drones to explore the two tunnels and skittered along the wall with us as we crept along.
It didn’t take us long to reach the split in the tunnel, the foul air rising from the lower tunnel, along with the majority of kobold prints that led that way, making it clear who was most likely to be down there, as opposed to the tunnel that rose instead.
We waited, and after nearly half an hour, the spider drone from the lower level returned, chittered at Horkesh, and then rushed up to join its brethren on the ceiling above us.
“There are more of the smelly ones down there, many more,” Horkesh relayed. “There are three of the Drow down there; they keep the smelly ones in cages.”
“What does the room look like?” Bane asked her and got a confusing jumble of words in reply.
The room was apparently both
