"Riley?" the figure asked with a gasp. Their voice was still that strange mix of a whisper with breathing difficulty, as if they were sick or had some trouble breathing. "I thought I told you never to come here. Never to travel beyond the fog."
Riley frowned while still being upside down as the spider was holding us in place. The web was no longer pulling up, but it was still attached to every single one of us.
"I don't know about any fog. The only thing close to it that I saw was a thin layer of mist, but that giant wall of fog that you showed me last time was nowhere to be seen. I even paused, thinking that the mist might be something related to that, but I could get through it just fine. It didn't burn like what happened last time," Riley explained like a child trying to justify their actions to an angry parent.
"What are you…" Riley's master paused and then let out a sigh that had a strange clicking behind it. "How is it possible? How do you have the System?"
"So this IS what you have?" Riley said with a big smile.
"Yes. What are you doing here?" Riley's master shook their head.
"We were hoping to rescue the people that were kidnapped." they replied.
"The people who were what?" Riley's master yelled, rage clear in their voice, and the figure took a few steps forward, staring up at the spider that was still being held on the floor by an unseen force. "I gave you room. I gave you space, and I let you have your children, and this is how you repay me? This is how you give back to everything I've done for you? Fine. The next ones will be better."
Riley's master waved her hand to the side, making us fall from the webs. Then, using the same strands that were everywhere, they grabbed every single spider in the room and formed a massive ball by the ceiling. That ball of silk started to spin and become tighter and tighter and tighter. At first, only a few medium-sized spiders, the ones the size of dogs, started to be broken. But soon, more of them started to perish, all being squished by their own spider webs. While the giant Rotbug, the Matriarch who seemed to be leading them, continued to screech more and more until, in a burst of blood, pieces of its legs fell to the ground.
All the spiders in the area, from the minuscule ones the size of nail clippings to the gigantic brood mother that was too big to even escape this cave, were compressed into a single ball about the size of a watermelon.
Unexpectedly, we felt some particles rushing into our bodies. Quite a lot of them, actually. Even though we were not the ones responsible for killing those monsters. Maybe the distance played a part, or maybe we got some of the benefits thanks to having fought the creatures, but one way or another, I was back at 100% of level 20. The System was even nice enough to tell me that the quest to unlock tier 2 had reached 97.3%. I felt so very close, but so very far at the same time.
After watching that massacre, I turned back to Riley's master and checked them with my System. I was terrified with the idea of the kind of power they would have if they were able to do something so brutal with creatures that were at tier 2.
Witch of the Silken Fortress - Tier 2 - Saturated.
I couldn't even process what I was reading. Riley's master, the person who taught them how to create antidotes and grow herbs, was at the very least at level 20 of tier two. Maybe even getting closer to tier three. That was wild, and I couldn't wrap my head around that. And Riley seemed to say that their master had been around for a while, meaning that whoever they were, they were not human.
The cloaked figure glanced around the group and paused on me before moving to Astrid and back.
"Which one of the two of you did it?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I'm asking which one of you got the System. It has to be one of you two. You are the strongest of this group, and I seriously doubt there are more humans out there with the System that we don't know about it."
"Who is we?" I pressed, even though I knew I was punching way above my weight class. I still wasn't going to give information without getting anything in return.
"You think you have the right to interrogate me? You just entered a world that you know nothing about, and now you're playing with powers that go well beyond your understanding. Now tell me, which one of you got it?" Riley's master took a step forward, and I could see a glimpse of their hands, which didn't look human at all. There was something too sharp about them. But it was just a shadow as the torch flickered and the lights seemed to almost bend around them, stopping anyone from seeing what was hidden beneath the cloak.
"Wait, wait." Riley spoke up and got to their feet. "Master, they helped me. They helped the village. We were attacked, and they were just helping us out. I don't know if they are the first ones to get this power, but they were traveling. They helped the people without asking for anything in return. And they're my friends."
Riley's master turned towards them and shook her head. "They got something in return! That's not what I'm..." They paused. "You know what? You're right. I'm sure you all have many questions, and I might have some of the answers. But first, I would like to explain something to my apprentice." The master gestured to the passage as if asking us to follow, but stopped midway before turning back, "Wait, you said people were kidnapped?"
"Some spiders tried to eat them there and then, but others seemed to grab people and run away. The villagers said that this wasn't the first time it happened, so there were some people missing. They were hoping we could find them." Michael quickly explained.
"Shit." Riley's master turned to the side and grabbed the torch that was on the ground. The witch quickly walked around the cave, waving their hand up every time they passed by a cocoon. When she did so, the silken prisons would raise from the ground. In a few moments, there were about 10 different cocoons floating behind the witch as they walked quickly towards the passage. "Come. Let's deal with this first, then I'll explain everything to you. Or I'll do it midway."
"Where are you taking them?" I asked, not sure if this person was an ally or not.
"I'm going to try to help them. If they've been eaten already, there's nothing much I can do there. But if they are just poisoned and less food storage, then maybe I can still save them. But I can't do that here. I need my tools. I need my cauldron. I need to be at my base, anyway. Come, come with me. Or don't. I really don't care. Just Riley, please. I'm going to need your help."
Riley got to their feet and quickly followed their master, but the rest of us stayed behind for a few seconds. I approached Astrid and whispered, "How far are you from tier 2?"
"Need Sleep," the Frosted Lumberjack replied.
I nodded. "I don't think we can handle that witch the way we are now. Not considering their level. So if we don't know for sure what to do, if we feel like they are a threat, let's see if we can figure out a way to get out of here safely, sleep, and then come back once we get some more powerful skills."
Astrid turned towards me with a confused expression and asked, "You?"
"Close, but not there yet. I'm going to need a couple more things to complete the quest. Michael?"
"I got a couple of level-ups during that fight. I'm at 18 now."
"That's good, but not great. Let's see if we can survive this. For now, let's try to be friendly, more out of a lack of options than anything else."
My companions nodded, and we quickly followed Riley and their master. They went up that path from the cave and continued up the stairs towards the secondary location that we had found once we arrived in this sewage system. And then we found even more spiders. But these were silent, quiet, almost as if they were in some sort of stasis or standby mode. It was very strange seeing them after having fought them in the past day. But they were docile, even.
We continued following that passage until we reached a wide room where Riley's Master was placing the cocoons in a circle. Every single one of them had its own small area, and they were being very careful with every movement. That made me a bit more comfortable with the witch, but there were still some alarms ringing in my head. Mostly because we were dealing with something that wasn't human and something that knew enough about the System to understand what or who we were, which put us at a very big disadvantage. And that's not a state that I enjoyed being in.
Riley herself was putting some plants into a pot, even using some to make a pill before adding to the boiling cauldron.
After a moment, Riley's master snapped their fingers, and one of the spiders approached. The witch quickly grabbed the head of the spider and ripped it off with brute strength, removing a poison gland and tossing it inside a cauldron where a concoction was being prepared.
"What the hell was that?" I asked, more out of surprise than anything else.
"If I'm making an antidote, I need their poison," the Witch of the Silken Fortress replied.
"But aren't they yours? Why are you killing them?"
"Because that's all they're good for," the witch replied matter-of-factly. "I made those spiders to serve me. And if they don't, if they can't, then they should all be dead. Now they made a mess, and they're going to have to pay for it."
I glanced at Riley, trying to gauge their reaction, but they seemed to be fine with that. Or at least used to that type of response. I wasn't entirely sure if that was a good thing or not, but I wasn't going to say anything for now.
"And can you tell us what exactly is going on here?"
Riley's master let out a sigh. "I suppose I should work and talk. I've been growing these creatures. They are part of a small project that I've been assigned to."
"Assigned by who?" I asked.
"Whom," Riley's master replied, correcting my grammar. "And that is not something I can talk about right now. I would appreciate it if you stopped interrupting me until I'm done with what I have to say, and then you can ask your questions."
The witch paused, waiting for a response, and after we nodded, she continued.
"As I said, this is a project I was working on. The idea was to make them a bit smarter so they could do more complicated tasks. And that's what I've been doing all these winters. But last year, I had a very smart spider, the Matriarch that we saw below. She was able to communicate and requested a larger room, a place that was darker where she could continue to spawn her brood, all to serve me. I felt that was an interesting development and allowed it, keeping a close eye on them at first. But as time went by, I became complacent. The spiders were not doing anything that I didn't want, and I figured that's how things were going to stay."
"Guess you were wrong," I added.
The witch nodded. "Clearly. And that's my mistake. My mistake that I'm now working to fix. No one in the village was ever supposed to be affected by this. It was all supposed to be just for me, and maybe some of the fauna of the area would end up serving as their meal. But that was about it. Yet here we are," the witch sighed and opened the first cocoon, revealing a dead deer inside. She didn't bat an eye and just moved along to the next. This time, a man who was still breathing and still could be saved.
The witch quickly pricked his neck with one of their claw-like fingers and let a bluish-green liquid that was in their cauldron drip into the wound. After a moment, the man who had an expression of agony relaxed, and his expression softened.
"Who are you?" Michael asked. He never expected someone to be doing that, much less that quickly. The man who was trapped inside the cocoon seemed malnourished, but was now even looking healthier. His skin had more color to it, and by all accounts, he was just sleeping.
The witch let out a sigh. "I suppose I should tell you. You deserve to know." She turned to Riley. "You more than anyone. I just ask you, Riley, that you give me a chance to explain before making any judgments."
The witch put both hands around their hood. Hands that had only four fingers instead of five and tips that turned into black claws instead of nails. They pulled back the hood, revealing a face that not a single one of us was expecting. The witch had completely black eyes that were way too big for their face, a small bump where the nose should be with two tiny dots for nostrils. The face was completely white, although there were some hints of green on the skin. On the top of their head, there were also two tiny antennae, and their mouth also had two incisors that moved around as they spoke.
"I believe you can clearly see that I'm not human. And I also believe that you have no idea what I am. Or at least, you never have seen someone like me. After all, if you did, we would be aware of you. But I am a Lumerin. And my people have been using the System for generations."