After the End: Serenity

The plan started well. They had to head there very early, but Ida had no trouble buying the dungeon slot she wanted. That meant they were already waiting when their targets showed up and were given a slot by showing some sort of token. Ann wondered what that was, but it wasn’t like they were going to get any sort of a pass; that would require handing over information to someone else.

It was the same three people and a familiar. The familiar was oddly large, almost as large as a person, but it was covered in a carapace and hopped. Ann would have thought it was a tamed animal if it were associated with anyone other than an obvious mage.

They were fifteen minutes after the target, which was excellent timing; having done the dungeon, Ann knew that ought to be long enough for the enemy party to be out of the first room and in fact out of easy hearing, especially if their group delayed a little. To achieve that, Ida sent the three guards into the decoy run first, with orders to very slowly clear the monsters out. That would give them far more options when everything was over on how to get away cleanly.

Ann had to admit that that wasn’t a detail she’d have thought of. Perhaps there was a reason Ida worked for the Memory of Blood while Ann worked for the Memory of Light. She didn’t like admitting that there was anything she didn’t know, but it was very clear that they had different training. She’d never heard of the obscuration potions before, either.

By the time Ann saw the entry information for the slot they were going to infiltrate, Ida and one of the two guards were already inside. With five people inside, the slot was easy to find, so she stepped inside as well.

The dungeon was dim and the fact that they didn’t dare use a light source didn’t help. Fortunately, that was also something they’d prepared for. Ann pulled the enchanted goggles out of her pack, fitted the eyepieces over her eyes, and tied the leather band behind her head. They were far more expensive than a lantern but would also allow for sight unhindered by flickering flames or the shadows cast by a magelight, just like using the Skill they were based on.

Ann glanced around and saw Ida, then both of the guards. They were all here; good. Ida gestured down the path and they set off. They’d need to hurry; there was more than one way through the dungeon and they planned to make sure they took a different route than the other group. The routes weren’t very different in length, only in detail; they all had spiders, but the predominant type of spider changed based on the route you took.

Ida quietly crept ahead of the other three. She moved incredibly softly; Ann could barely tell where she was even with the darksight goggles. The first route she wanted to check was the route that could, for a strong enough group, be the fastest. If the target was on that route, they might have to change their plans and follow them instead of taking an alternate route.

The route was filled with hunting spiders, which meant poison and hefty attacks but no webs and few surprises. It was straightforward combat. It would be nice if that was the route the target’s group took, because it would leave them injured and easy targets, but she knew they wouldn’t. Not with only three people and without a healer other than the target herself, and she was supposed to be primarily an oracle.

If the target wasn’t on it, Ann’s group wouldn’t take it either; four people was really not enough for that route. It might be possible but it would be slow. They couldn’t afford to be slow if they wanted to ambush the target.

Ann relaxed a little when Ida returned in a hurry, followed by the single hunting spider that was the marker for the route. Killing the lone spider was easy enough for four people, but what it meant was important: the fugitive was on one of the other two routes.

The route the target would probably take was normally the slowest. It had relatively few enemies but the terrain was terrible and most of the enemies were hidden spiders. They’d jump out and attack you from places it didn’t seem like they could fit. The route was avoided by anyone who wasn’t training a Path to find ambushes because it was simply unpleasant. It would be an excellent route for an oracle.

Normally, Ann would have preferred the hidden spider route as well, but she already felt a little off balance without her normal insight into what was about to happen and she was certain that would only get worse when she got into combat. Not knowing when something was about to spring out of nowhere and attack her would only make it worse. Given that, Ann sincerely hoped the target would take that route.

With the hunting spider dispatched, Ida set off quietly down the third route, the route they expected to take. There was no point in checking the second route; their target had to be on one of the two and it would be easier to see the damage on the third route if their targets were on it and they needed to divert to the ambush spiders so they could get ahead of their target and lie in wait.

When Ida didn’t come back quickly, Ann and the guards slowly moved up behind her. She’d have returned if there was any sign of fighting, so this must be the route they were taking. They had to go through the web spiders. It was the second most commonly taken route; no one liked the ambushes, so weaker parties took the webs instead.

Ann wasn’t looking forward to it, but at least she didn’t hate webs or spiders. It was the reason she was stuck with a shield even though she didn’t normally use one; she needed something to block the web attacks. She’d either discard it or strap it to her back once they were through that section.

The first room was, like the first room of hunting spiders, only a single web-throwing spider. Ann wasn’t all that familiar with real spiders, so she didn’t realize that this spider was different from non-monstrous spiders; in truth, it looked more like a wasp, with a long thin web-throwing rear that it could actually move around to face in almost any direction instead of a fat abdomen. Despite that, its relationship to a true spider was obvious, with a multitude of black eyes that gleamed in what little light the dungeon provided and eight legs that easily moved across the strong webbing the humans would need to remove lest they become tangled in it.

Ida waved Ann forward. She was the front line, this time, so Ann led off with her shield raised high. She’d show the spider that she was no one to ignore!

Fighting without her flashes of foresight was harder than Ann expected. She was caught with webbing in her eyes in the very first blast from the spider when she was just a hair too slow getting her shield in the way and some of it slipped past her shield. A swift swipe with her shield arm tore enough of it off her goggles to see and she answered the spider with a quick stab. It didn’t go quite where she wanted, but pinning its abdomen in place temporarily was enough to let Ida slip in and separate its head from the rest of its body.

“Good stab,” Ida complimented Ann. “You set it up perfectly.”

Ann grunted doubtfully. She knew Ida was making fun of her; she’d done poorly and that wasn’t where the sword was supposed to go at all. Ida’s clear anticipation of Ann’s mistake was annoying and calling it out in a false compliment was worse.

The next fight went better, even though there were two spiders. By the time they were most of the way through the separated path, Ann had mostly adapted to not having the continual warning of what was going to happen next, but it still threw her sometimes. She kept being caught by surprise by both the spiders and her supposed allies, which only made things worse. It was intensely irritating.

Even worse, the others weren’t having the same issue. Ann knew that was because they didn’t have the same ability she did, but that didn’t actually make it any better. She was the only one disabled by Ida’s potion and she intensely resented it.

When they finally rushed through the last of the web spider groups, Ann’s shield was so covered in sticky webbing that it weighed at least three times what it had to begin with, and that was with scraping it off every chance she had. She was never able to completely clear it and it only got worse and worse. She gladly dropped it and glared at Ida to stop her from telling Ann what to do.

Ida didn’t even seem to notice. She whispered urgently, “Hurry, we need to get ahead of them and they’re not far behind!”

Ann wanted to snap back at her that she knew; she could hear the whump in the near distance from the ambush spiders’ path. They were in time, but only barely. If she said anything, she might alert the fugitive.

Instead, Ann hurried to the ambush point, followed by the other three. It was a quirk in the dungeon’s design; there was a room where the three paths came together then split into two, an upper path and a lower path. The upper path was full of flying spiders, while the lower path had all three kinds of spiders from the previous paths; a few flying spiders would drop down as well, but it was still a far easier path and the one almost everyone used.

The quirk was that the area where the paths joined then branched was always free of spiders, a sort of safe area. That meant the enemy would relax; they might even pause for a rest. Between that and the hiding places created by the branching paths, it was the perfect place for an ambush.

Ann’s place was on the walkway that led to the upper area; she could easily hop down behind them when they went past her. If by some strange chance they decided to use the upper path, she’d have to improvise; she could probably still jump out at them. She might be able to push someone off the path, but that would be messier.

It wasn’t long before a man’s voice was clear. “... flying spiders or more of the same, but mixed?”

“Hmm.” A woman’s voice, this time. That had to be the fugitive; she was the only woman in the group. “I feel like I’m getting the hang of the ambushes, but I think I still need another run of the lower area. We can go after the flyers next time.”

Ann listened, then when she thought they were close, she peeked out from behind the foliage. She’d set it off, so she needed to get the timing right.

The familiar was leading, with the Fire mage right behind it. The target was third and the axman was last. An odd arrangement, but the axman and the target seemed to be talking; they’d probably shifted their order in the safe area. Ann waited until the target was directly under her, then jumped, caught herself, and lunged forward to bury her sword in the girl’s heart. Without a truly skilled healer, that was a fatal injury and it would certainly take her out; since she was the only healer, it meant the mission would succeed no matter what happened next.

Ann felt the resistance of the girl’s chest as her sword sunk into her flesh, but even with the force of her movement behind it, it went in only slowly and stuck less than two inches into the target’s chest. A bad wound, fatal if her aim was on, but Ann wasn’t certain it was. She started to pull the sword back to go for the throat, but her arm had no strength.

The world seemed to narrow, then Ann saw no more.