I was the first one to begin the descent. Savannah followed me down on the same line. I didn't know what might be at the bottom, but I did know that I would be strong enough to survive it. My body grew tenser as we approached the bottom. Most of the male spiders would be out hunting right now.
This time of night the only spiders this far into the nest should be the babies, and the queen. We didn't know where the queen was based. That was why we were headed into enemy territory. If we had a rough idea of where the queen was then there would be a much higher chance of people taking the job to exterminate the nest. Killing the queen would pretty much guarantee the end of that nest.
If the another queen did manage to create another smaller nest then we'd have a good chance of taking it out before it took root like this nest had. My feet touched the soft ground at the bottom gently. I freed myself of the rope, and started walking away from the wall as I surveyed the surroundings. I pulled out the black daggers Bryce had made for me from Wyatt's scales. I found it funny how much Bryce enjoyed working with Wyatt's scales.
He'd made all of us armor, and these daggers so far. Wyatt had been mildly irritated when Bryce had continued to ask for more, and more, but he'd wanted to know more about the traits of his scales. Ironically the armor responded to us. On it's own it was much too heavy for someone to use properly, but it became lighter for the three of us whenever we touched it. Our bond to Wyatt allowed us to use weapons made from his scales.
The scale pattern of the armor made it look almost like it was a natural material. Like scale pattern leather. We spread out. Staying within line of sight of each other as we started heading deeper into the nest. At first we didn't see anything.
Then spiders started to come out of the grass. Dozens of cat sized spiders started to come from everywhere. I crushed dozens of them in an instant. Jax spiked half a dozen with his magic as well. I'd gotten all the ones in the trees while Jax had gotten the ones on the ground.
"Jax," I looked at him with a smirk, "Can you track the ones on the ground?"
"Easily," Jax smirked back at me, "You can track the ones in the trees."
"Easily," I dropped my smirk as I used my sonar trick again.
I aimed higher into the trees, and Jax watched the ground. We became the early warning system for the others. Making it easy for the others to deal with the spiders when they came within range. One of the guys with Calen had the ability to control any weapon he'd touched for a short while. Similar to my telekinesis ability, but only with weapons he'd touched.
He was highly efficient at using the ability. You could see the years of practice in every single toss. Bringing his weapons back seconds before he lost control of them. Calen could speed up, or slow down any target he locked his eyes on. That made him, and the knife guy a deadly combo.
The only problem was the amount of acceleration or deceleration Calen could put into something depended on how much energy he put into each time. A little nudge was not that expensive, but the bigger the nudge the worse it would be. The knife guy's control didn't waver even when the knives moved faster or slower. From the look of it the two of them they'd taken time to practice together in real combat. Vernon, and his guys stayed away from the battle as much as they could.
I understood that they were trying to conserve their energy for when they dumped us. I wondered what they would do when we got far enough in that they believed we wouldn't be able to escape on our own. I didn't like that Calen didn't seem to know what Vernon's lackeys could do. One of them had to have some sort of teleportation ability. That was the only way this whole plan of his made sense.
Which one was it? Could I take him out, and ruin this entire plan? They'd catch me staring at each one of them one by one as I alternated between which one I was examining. Waiting for them to give away what they could do. If I found the right one then I could take him out as soon as he made the mistake of turning on us.
I kept on walking while pointing out the spiders as they came, and Jax did the same. Casually waiting for them to make a mistake as they got closer, and closer to realizing their plan. A slight tremor in the ground made those of us that felt it freeze in place. Another tremor shook the ground we were standing on. No.
It wasn't a tremor. Adult male spiders sprung up from the ground beneath our feet. Unlike the babies these ones weren't soft, and couldn't be crushed easily. It took a good chunk of my strength to kill just one of them. Jax, and Savannah took care of the other.
Not including their legs they were the same size as a virtual reality pod. I was caught off guard by the suddenness of their attack. This wasn't like the other nests we'd been briefed on. Males staying behind to defend the queen was an unusual turn of events. That meant that this particular nest had been attacked before.
More then once. Queens didn't evolve to produce guards without being attacked at least twice. It was an unusual fact that had caught my attention while we were being briefed. Somehow my mind had managed to absorb that little tidbit of information.
"We should leave now," Savannah was the first to speak up, "These two are armored guards to the queen. This nest has been attacked before. There will only be more guards, and a queen up ahead."