—————————Atlas—————————
She led them through passages where they ran into no spiderlings, they eventually reach one of the dungeon openings, a dark damp cave. They began traversing the cave slowly hardly able to see even with their special eyes.
Atlas had been thinking about his fight with the spider princess. He had felt so vindicated for Zena when she was racially attacked but nothing for the spider when he had done the same to her. "Allura, please accept my apology, I only acted in defense but I realize that knowingly walking into a kill zone means you can't complain if you die, we shouldn't have taken this path and trounced through your home." Atlas bowed out of respect, something he had often seen other commoners do for nobles.
"Accept his apology." Sui shrugged, "he didn't want to hurt you and only tried to save his life like you just did."
"I accept your apology but I don't understand... why apologize? I don't care, no one really owns their home and in your position, I would have killed you and used your body for weapons and armor. I thank you for not killing me."
Nui grew impatient, "I say we light a fire to the whole dungeon!"
Torui shrugged, "Whatever method will get us out of here the fastest, I feel like we've been here for a lifetime."
Saphra beamed but in the dark, it's more akin to say her smile glowed faintly, "You'd need lots of fire but that's my specialty." She formed a ball of fire in her palm and crushed it, "I love that idea."
Allura shook her head, "Can we not burn them all? I need a good amount alive to repopulate, and I need my mother's body to... evolve."
"Boring," Nui added.
Sui nodded, "maybe drown them but I don't have the water power for that."
Atlas sat up activating blade fist on both hands, "I have a better idea, Shuichi follow me." Shuichi shrugged and followed as Atlas took the lead, "you were right and I know you've been holding back and I told you so, so say it."
Shuichi didn't respond for a long moment, "so? Right or wrong you're their slave now, we need to figure out how to free you."
"We?" Atlas beamed but in the dark, it was more of a dim silhouette of his teeth.
Shuichi sighed, "I'm not a good person Atlas, if I was stronger back there we wouldn't be here, I'd have killed them and you know why I know I could do it because we did it before and I didn't flinch at the thought of their corpses like you."Atlas couldn't really see him but if he could he would have given a fear full look. "I'm not saying that to scare or intimidate you, I'm just telling you I'm willing to do what needs to be done."
Atlas nodded. "But I wouldn't say I'm a good person either-"
Shuichi almost snapped as he shut Atlas down, "No Atlas, you are. I wouldn't go look for those slaves but I already know that that's the next thing on your mind is to find those slaves and save them because you can relate to them but I can't, they aren't my problem."
Atlas shook his head, "anyone can relate to a slave."The group continued to offer up ideas every now and then until they reached the entrance to a cavernous room within the cave. Within they could see a light illuminating Hundreds of spiderlings, several spider knights, and an enormous spider queen. If the princess was an elephant then the queen was a mid-sized whale. She stood almost 8 meters tall being over 10 meters long.
Zena stepped forward into the room, "Spider Queen!" She bellowed.
The queen laughed before her face straightened and tightened, as much as a face structured on chitin could. "Vampyr? Are those dungeon lords? A hellspawn? AN ARCANELING!?! my lucky day."
Atlas stepped up as well, standing beside Zena. She was tall for a human woman standing at about 178 centimeters, but next to Atlas she looked almost normal standing at equal height to someone who looked like puberty was unsure if it actually wanted to happen or not. "Spider Queen your reign is over." Zena and Atlas rushed forward, Zena attacking the knights while Atlas activated his improved reflexes and struck at the queen. The queen didn't even skip a beat, she tossed strange-looking spiderlings at Atlas before smacking him aside with another leg. The spiders. Began to bite down on him injecting him with a strange burning liquid. He froze it before it could travel through his bloodstream freezing the spiders on him. But having mini ice pikes of venom within caused blockages and clotting. He ripped the small bits of venom out and shattered the spiders all over him. Zena for her part was able to land a punch on a spider knight cracking the chitin exoskeleton around its head but she was from that point forward put on a permanent defense, ducking, jumping, bobbing, and weaving various spider-like appendages.
Sui threw up his hands, "I'm more of a spread fighter I'll take the knights if she'll let me."
Nui sighed, "I don't care who it is as long as I get to cut them up." He said with a smile. He pulled out his short sword and jumped into the front line of the spiderlings activating his demonic sight, slashing wildly into the fray before retreating back out of reach of their attacks.
"You all will take the queen, my beloved's chosen will fight with me. Saphra, take on the spiderlings, Allura you and your spiderlings will aid Saphra." Everyone nodded.
Atlas faced the 12 spider knights and began freezing the ambient water into ice spikes forming about 50 nearly depleting his entire mana supply. "Zena move!" She leaped out of the way without hesitation as the spikes crashed into the spiders killing 5 and disorienting the rest for a second, but a second was all Zena was after. She blurred stabbing her hands through the eyes and skulls of three spiders. "Think you can handle the rest? Your friends may need my help." He nodded and she blurred before vanishing her speed incredible. "Come! On!"
They looked at each other pensively before steeling themselves to charge him. He used up the rest of his mana on a frost Ray freezing the legs of one spider causing it to trip both shattering its legs and creating a spider pile up as the others crash into the fallen spider. Two quickly recovered but it wasn't quick enough, coating his blades and arms in frost-like armor he stabbed into one's back till his fist made contact freezing the wound open. The other slipped past his stab only getting a glancing wound on the side of its face as it went to bite down on his arm but as they did they bit into icy armor before slowly freezing over unable to pull its frozen mouth free as the ice started to coat it. "Surrender and accept the new spider queen."
The spiders stopped and clicked their mandibles in what he could assume was confusion before speaking up in unison, "New queen?"
Atlas stopped, he had never explained why he was here, so it couldn't have been fair to do this, "Spider princess Allura is the new queen."
"...Oh, we will be treated better? The old queen is dead?" One of the spider knights asked. "
Atlas rubbed the back of his head "of course, of course, the queen isn't dead as of now but without a doubt, she will be very soon." They all looked up in surprise.
—————————Shuichi—————————
"Lightning!" A bolt of lightning jumped from Shuichi into the spider queen stunning her but providing no damage. He looked over to see Saphra's progress. She had cleared out many of the spiderlings but she hadn't reached the large swarm just waiting by the queen.
Sui pointed his hand at the spider queen's face, "Eldridge blast!" Bolts of flaming lightning launched into the queen's eyes. As Nui sliced two of her legs in half.
"No!!! Spiderlings… Frenzy!" The spiderlings' eyes all changed to red before they rushed Nui, but that wasn't the only problem, somehow without her sight she found them and bashed them into the crowd of spiders with two of her legs.
The spiders began to carry Nui to her after biting into him paralyzing him. "You injured me so you'll die first."
Nui nodded to himself, "Okay let's stop fucking around guys, let's bury her!"
Shuichi stood there in the dangerous situation and nodded, "he's right, we need to literally bury her, I can soften the dirt under the stone with my lightning if you can remove it somehow."
Sui and Torui nodded as they began spawning strange goblins, about 20 total. The goblins began ripping up and eating the floor. Torui ran up pulling out his bow firing at the spiders applying his Eldridge flame to his arrows he hit a few spiderlings and even the queen but she used some spiderlings like a fire blanket to put out the flames. She Weber both Torui and Nui over to her using tens of spiderlings to use their web spinnerets for her. She went to bite down on Nui but something in Torui wouldn't let it happen. He grabbed an arrow and lunged in the way, the spider queen biting down on him. He plunged the arrow into her eye as he ignited the arrow, Sui attempting to help launched an Eldridge flame at the embedded arrow causing it to explode as the flames burst against it and her head. Sui proceeded to create a curtain of Eldridge flames to block Nui off from her but she lunged through the flames attempting to fit him in her already full mouth but as she did she felt another stab as more of her vision began to wink out, "no wait, stop... I'll pact with you dungeon lords. Please I'll do it."
Before any of them could respond Shuichi sent a blast of electricity through the ground cracking the stone flooring. No longer sturdy she fell into a pit cleared out by the dungeon minions breaking another three legs in the process but worse was the stones from above that crushed her and Torui to paste. Nui looked into the pit and smiled, "down came the rain and washed the spiders out." He said in a sing-songy voice.
Shuichi dry heaved before straightening back out. Saphra looked in the pit, seeing Torui's mangled body she grit her teeth and glared at Shuichi, "you could have waited for me, now there is no way I can heal him in time."
Shuichi winced, "I guess you can't."
She formed a ball of flames and aimed it at Shuichi. "I see you didn't need help. Well Allura, dinner is served." Allura didn't skip a beat devouring her mother.
Sui cringed, "Gross."
Nui cheered her on.
"That reminds me of that one time I bit a piece of my tongue off and swallowed it by accident," Sui added. The room fell silent as they all stared at the elephant in the room. Atlas made his way back but didn't say anything as he could read the room, worse yet he didn't know what to feel when he saw Torui, this man hadn't actually done anything bad to him yet but he had made him a slave. Then Atlas remembered while seeing Allura eat her mom to evolve. He had one more slot available for a class and he had two very unique and rare options, a spider queen corpse or a Dungeon lord corpse. If she could think about power progression at a time like this he could too.
He lept into the pit atop Allura and then slid off her back. He put his hand in Torui's chest and grit his teeth as he pulled on Torui's essence and remaining mana. His empty class changed into one that was known as one of the most popular and powerful, his mind was flooded with the knowledge of a warlock. He could feel his understanding and memory grow as his magical pool increased. While his hand was still in there he felt something hard and smooth like some sort of circular crystal. He grabbed it and took it with him when he climbed out. "Know what this is?"
Sui nodded, "A specialized dungeon core. I have a core I planned to use here but if he died for this I think it would be better to use his core for this dungeon."
Zena crossed her arms, "I'll stay here as it's dungeon boss alongside Allura, the academy shouldn't be too far so I doubt you'll run into trouble.
Saphra shook her head, "it's more than specialized, it can make a dungeon but it doesn't need to be stationary like most cores are. A true evolution in dungeon creation. Or you could crush it for essence and abilities. Without being the savior it may be impossible to use for us."
Sui shook his head, "I feel like it can be used but it's not mine, maybe… If I could just…" energy exploded from the crystal as the room automatically started repairing itself, moreover he did the unthinkable, he summoned a goblin and shoved the crystal in its mouth. After almost choking on the large stone its eyes lit up with Eldridge flames, "What happened guys?"