"Fine," Sheral said quickly. "About three fourths."
"Half," Zach said after.
"Half?! How?"
"I don't know, Tero. Freeze snapping an entire room has a cost."
"Fuuuck."
"I'm fine for one, bout nine tenths," Merlin said as he walked back over with Jane.
"Same here, bit more," Jane said, giving me a weird look I immediately had to interpret as her reading my mind.
"Well… Yah. Let's go into the next room with all of this in mind."
"I'm good with it, but maybe we spend a second to rest?" Sheral said.
"No, everyone in the guild is going at a good rate, right? We need to be the first ones outa here."
"Tero, you're being a kid again."
"He is," Jane said. "But no, we should go quick. Ambushes start at the elite level and only get worse. I don't think giving them time is a good move either."
Out of all of us, Jane or Zach spent the most time in dungeons, so I was inclined to take their insight.
"Okay then… This next room we should do the swirly dirly."
It was a very stupid name, but a pretty good strategy.
With Sheral's new class she could move existing barriers she made, so by moving them in a seemingly random way that ultimately was based in a pattern, our all mage squad could exploit the seemingly random protections.
It worked especially well because one way barriers were quite a bit weaker than two way ones.
Or, the barrier was stronger if it affected all of us.
Defenses also worked better the more you decided beforehand.
A barrier that had X HP, depending on how much mana you felt like giving it, was weaker for the cost than one specifically made to have a thousand.
Same amount of mana, but leaving things open apparently made magic worse at its job.
So we had spent quite a bit of time making spells with very specific purposes.
Of course, this strategy came with the risk that we all had to work our minds a crazy amount, but still.
"It's a protective fractal array, Tero," Merlin tried to correct me.
"Nah, swirly dirly," Sheral said.
"Well, whatever it is, center it in the next room as we walk in, okay?"
"Mhm."
Sheral raised her staff.
The entrance was an obvious 'break me' cracked wall, and Merlin took her getting ready as permission to do exactly that.
Stone blasted into the room.
Then he shot through after it, with me following close behind.
If I hadn't been flying I would have fallen instantly.
There was barely a fucking floor.
A narrow ledge ran around the room, but everything in the middle was a black pit. Bundles of webbing hung above it at different heights, some small enough to be animals.
Others weren't.
Golden barriers swept in behind us. One turned flat beneath my feet before rising sideways, another spinning past my shoulder as Sheral started building the pattern.
Above, below, turning, falling.
For a moment the room was all moving gold.
Then the spiders started shooting.
I pushed my mana out, running leylines along the walls and up toward the ceiling. More crossed overhead, joining together until the room started to resemble a massive birdcage.
A white glob stopped a foot from my face.
Another stopped beside it.
"Keep going," Merlin said.
He was floating slightly ahead of me, one hand out toward the spiders.
More shots hit whatever he was holding in the air. The silk stretched between them, forming a disgusting white curtain that he shoved sideways into a passing barrier.
Then something grabbed me around the waist.
I jerked to the left just as gold swept through where my legs had been.
Merlin's other hand moved.
Right. He was moving me too.
That was probably for the best.
A spider dropped from the ceiling toward him, armored legs folded over its face. Merlin shoved it away without looking, bouncing it off the wall hard enough to crack something.
It still caught itself though, much to my dismay.
Behind us, Zach and Jane finally got through the entrance.
Roots immediately started crawling out of the stone around the pit. Thick ones stretched across first, smaller growth twisting around them until greenery was spreading below our feet.
"Coming in!" Jane shouted.
Several Carapace Guards were already moving along the ledge toward her.
They came in low, front legs raised like shields, with another pair climbing the wall beside them.
Jane planted her staff.
Roots caught the first spider around its legs. The next tried to climb over it and got caught as well, dragging the others into a mess of struggling limbs.
Zach ducked past Sheral while Jane backed toward us, growing the floor ahead of herself as she went.
The last of my leylines joined.
"Done."
Merlin let go of me.
I landed on the greenery, felt it dip under my weight, then immediately had to move again.
A chain wrapped around my waist and pulled me beneath a turning barrier.
Another caught higher on the cage, dragging me upright on the other side.
It was a much less graceful way of moving than Merlin's, who just slid through the air like he had decided gravity was optional.
But it worked.
Although flying was nice, it took concentration that was best spent moving around Sheral's barriers.
At this point I got a proper count.
About seven Widow Weavers and twenty Carapace Guards.
They outnumbered us five to one, which was fine as we outleveled most of them by ten.
The Guards had started spreading around the pit, stepping onto Jane's growing floor wherever it reached the edges. Behind them the Weavers stayed on the walls, long legs hooked into the webbing.
A few shots hit our barriers.
Then a few more.
Most weren't powerful enough to do much.
More like they were trying to send decoys.
One Weaver shot at Merlin, then shot again toward where he moved.
That second one came a lot closer.
I didn't particularly like that.
"Ready?" I asked.
"Go," Jane said.
Chains shot from every side of the room.
Through the cage, from the walls, and from the anchors I had laid across Sheral's moving barriers.
Every spider I could see got at least two.
Each chain wasn't strong on its own, but they would happily pull a spider's legs off if two pulled from opposite directions.
And that was the goal.
Several immediately lost limbs.
A Guard caught between the wall and a rising barrier was lifted sideways, its legs kicking uselessly before two came away.
Another managed to duck the first chain, only for the second to catch its rear leg and drag it straight into the gold.
But most of them moved.
They twisted, jumped, or pulled their legs tight beneath themselves. One Weaver let go of the wall entirely and dropped on a thread.
Still, dodging my chains meant they had to land somewhere.
Roots snapped shut around them.
Merlin brought both hands toward his chest.
"Down."
I ducked.
The shockwave went over my head hard enough that I felt it through my teeth.
Leaves tore free around us. The Guards standing on the greenery folded backward, their legs still held while the rest of them tried to follow the blast.
Several hit the floor with their undersides exposed.
Zach didn't wait to end their lives with a lance of ice.
The next Guard got its armored legs up in time, so he stopped throwing lances at that one.
Instead a narrow drill formed in front of its face.
It tried to turn away, but Merlin swept its legs sideways, Jane tightened the roots, and the drill went in a crevice right behind the plate.
Every spell we were using was new, maybe not a new idea but a new pattern.
Spells that were overcharged or used at a higher or lower intensity than they were meant to were dreadfully inefficient.
So instead a good mage should remake a spell often, and we had all taken the time to devise these efficient and low cost spells.
Of course, Sheral was still pumping her mana, but for a room that was fine.
We each had a formation where we were the centerpiece.
This one was hers.
For a few seconds it worked beautifully.
Then the remaining spiders started getting out.
One Guard bit through the root holding its back legs. Another twisted until the limb my chain had caught came off, then kept coming.
They advanced together.
The ones in front raised their armor. The ones behind climbed onto them, reaching over the first row to catch the next barrier.
A heavy blast of silk hit one of Sheral's panels.
Then another hit the exact same place.
The gold cracked.
A third shot punched through, stretching into strands as it came toward us.
Merlin caught most of it.
Most.
I pulled myself sideways, felt something brush my sleeve, and watched the thread snap tight against the roots behind me.
"Were out of time on this Sheral," Merlin said.
I looked up.
The Weavers weren't firing at us whenever they could see us anymore.
They were waiting for the same openings.
Well, fuck.
"Outer pattern," Sheral said. "Now."
The barrier beside me tilted.
I moved before it finished.
Our little safe space shifted away from the center, spreading into a loose ring around it. Panels swept through the spots we had just left while others turned outward into the advancing Guards.
One spider took a barrier across the side and rolled.
Jane caught it before it could recover.
I chained its raised foreleg to the wall.
The next panel finished the job.
On the other side, Merlin lifted Zach over a low sweep without interrupting the ice gathering around his staff.
Zach landed, turned, and put a lance through a Weaver's mouth as it started another shot.
That felt good.
Then something scraped beneath my feet.
I looked down.
Two black points pushed between the roots.
They opened.
A chunk of greenery disappeared into the dark.
"Below!"
More mandibles showed through.
Apparently covering a hole full of spiders didn't make it stop being a hole full of spiders.
Jane pulled the roots tighter, but something underneath started shaking the whole floor.
I fired a chain down through the gap.
It caught.
Whatever was beneath me pulled back hard enough to make the roots creak, so I attached the other end to the stone wall and let it argue with that instead.
A thread hit Merlin across the shoulder.
He turned with the pull, trying to keep it from getting around his neck.
Another Weaver fired at Sheral.
She ducked the first shot.
The second caught her wrist.
Both threads went tight.
Merlin slid sideways, directly toward the path of a descending barrier.
I chained his waist and pulled the other way.
For a horrible second he was stretched between us.
"Don't yank!" he snapped.
Little hooks stood out along the silk where it pressed into his sleeve.
He caught the tether with his own magic, holding it still long enough for Zach to cut it with a thin blade of ice.
Across from us, Jane grew a root around Sheral's wrist and let the silk pull against the wood.
Sheral got her hand free.
The Weaver immediately changed targets.
Its next shot went for Jane.
Zach killed it before it finished its recalibration.
He was barely moving now except to step around the barriers.
An ice lance went high.
A drill went low.
A small patch of frost formed beneath a Guard's planted feet just as Merlin shoved it, turning a stumble into a full fall.
He was playing the roll of our executioner, and It was working.
There were considerably fewer spiders now than at the start of the fight.
Unfortunately, the ones left seemed very committed.
The floor split beneath Merlin.
A Guard forced its head through, mandibles chewing while its armored legs pushed the roots apart.
Merlin rose instantly.
The spider came up after him.
He drove it back down with both hands, but the hole was already there.
Another opened beside Jane.
Then one behind Zach.
The Guards around the edges advanced at the same time.
Jane's roots caught one and missed the next. A spider jumped from its trapped companion's back, landing inside the outer sweep.
Another simply pulled until it left a leg behind.
They weren't all trying to get through.
Some were throwing themselves onto the barriers, holding them for the others.
Sheral's staff shook.
A panel slowed beneath the weight of two Guards.
A Weaver fired through the opening.
Merlin stopped the shot, but another strand caught his elbow.
Something struck my back.
My coat's barrier flashed, and I staggered forward into a chain I had to make for myself.
For a second I couldn't find the next safe step.
Everywhere I looked there was gold, silk, or a fucking spider.
"Sheral," I said.
"I know."
Jane was trying to keep the floor together beneath us while binding everything standing on it.
Merlin had silk across one arm and a Guard trying to climb the force holding it away from his face.
Zach killed that one.
Another came through the floor.
There wasn't enough room anymore.
I sent the signal through my pin.
The answering ping came from all around me.
We had practiced this part too.
I triggered the defensive enchantment on my gear.
Light wrapped around me.
Merlin's protection flared a moment later. Zach's followed, then Jane's.
Sheral waited just long enough to see all four.
Then her own lit up.
The pattern stopped.
Every golden barrier changed direction.
There was no longer a safe space.
One cut across the center at waist height while another dropped through it. Two spun outward, slamming the advancing Guards into each other before sweeping them back toward the walls.
The floor came apart.
Roots, stone, silk, and spiders flew through the room.
I chained myself upward.
Gold hit my protective shell before I got clear.
The whole thing flashed white and threw me sideways hard enough to make my stomach turn.
Another chain caught me.
A second barrier passed beneath my feet, taking most of the greenery with it.
Below, Jane crouched inside a knot of thick roots. A panel smashed through the outside, scattering splinters across the glow of her item's protection.
She grew another layer where the first broke.
Merlin shoved himself backward through the air, folding a force barrier against his side as gold clipped him.
The impact spun him.
He used the spin, pulling himself above the next pass instead of trying to stop.
Zach had covered himself in angled ice.
A golden panel struck it, broke off a slab, and slid past while the protection beneath flared.
He dropped low as another swept overhead.
Sheral stood behind a small, fixed shield of her own, face tight with concentration.
The rest of her barriers were everywhere.
There was nothing elegant about it anymore.
She was just making a blender.
A Guard caught itself on one of my chains.
I pulled it into the path of a panel before it could climb toward me.
Something heavy hit the wall beside my head.
My hood's protection flashed against the fragments, and I tucked my chin as another chain dragged me clear.
Then, finally, Sheral let the moving barriers go.
The gold disappeared.
Bits of the room kept falling.
For a moment I stayed hanging there, waiting for something else to try killing me.
A piece of root bounced off my shoulder.
Below us, most of Jane's floor was gone.
She stretched a fresh strip of growth across the surviving supports, enough for Zach and Sheral to stand on while Merlin lowered himself beside them.
I followed, lowering myself with my chains.
My legs felt weird when they touched down.
Across the room, a surviving Guard dragged itself over a pile of broken stone.
Zach put a lance through its exposed carapace..
Nobody said anything for a second.
Our personal spells had taken some of it. The protections built into our clothes had caught smaller hits, and the defensive items had dealt with the ones we couldn't avoid.
Which was good.
Considering the alternative was getting blended.
Sheral looked down at the scratches across her sleeve.
Then she looked at me.
"Still want to be first?"
I glanced at the room.
At the ruined floor, the broken armor, and the silk hanging from Merlin's arm.
"…Yah."
Zach let out a long breath.
"Of course you do."