Four hundred, - interested? - he said looking at me curiously.
And I seriously thought about it. I have a trick that can keep danger at a bay within distance from me, the mine is narrow corridors, which means the path of attack there will be only one, spiders can be killed by one, provided that you have a bow or any other method of attack from afar.
The cons are, first of all, I didn't have a bow and I don't have a Magicka pool big enough to rely on spells alone. Using a flame atronach that will throw exploding fireballs underground is not the best idea. The mine may come down.
My wolfs are bad living shields, humans or animals not too large they may be able to block, but nothing more serious, especially not poisonous overgrown spiders. If it is just one spider I will be able to kill it, the second can be overcome with luck, the third by chance, but, as they managed to tell me, there is a whole nest of them.
-I am interested, but no.- I shook my head negatively, despite my situation, I was not so desperate as to joyfully jump into death's mouth. - Like you, I'm not a fool and I won't climb there alone, I have the courage for a team descent into the mine, but alone... no thanks, I'm not suicidal.
-Hmm, so there are already three of us,- he said mysteriously, and I couldn't help but cling to his hook, I understood that they were trying to draw me into an adventure, not in vain he named the amount and behaved as if it was good money for such work.
Besides, three plus my wolfs and now five, give two shields and armor that I ordered, fire to burn insects and their webs, yes normal an archer behind his back, that he would not put his own arrows into the shield-bearers, and now the party of adventurers is ready.
-Who is the third? - I voiced a fair amount of interest.
-Anneke Crag-Jumper the mother of one of the women working here, in particular, Sugi.
I knew who it was from the game. However, me, taking my time to remember her was misunderstood by a blacksmith.
- Do not think that if she is a woman she is not much of a warrior, maybe it is so in other provinces. But, the women of Skyrim are as strong in spirit and body as their husbands, and Anneka was an adventurer in the past, she was looking for adventures in all nine provinces, and the bow or sword in her hand is equal to the hammer in mine.
- You, our archer, and I? Is it all members of our little Suicide Squad ready to go down to the spiders or there are other foolishly brave individuals?
-Ha ha, - he obviously liked the way I called us, besides confirming unspoken consent to change one's mind about descending into the mine in the open new circumstances.
- So I understand that question of going down into the mine is settled, and all that remains to talk about is payment.
- Four hundred for all. Said an old smith.
-That's a hundred and thirty-three seven to person, not even funny! - right here
I raised the bargain. -Besides, you yourself admitted that you are interested in the very attempt much more than me and you know it. Anneke is the mother of the local miner. But I am ready to lend a helping hand, but only for adequate compensation.
-Hundred and fifty and I make your order before the descent to the mine for free.
-Deal. But do it by tomorrow noon I am not planning to stay longer than I planned in this village.
-Come tomorrow, an hour past sunrise we will be ready.
With those words, Filnjar runs back into his forge to start the work. While I have gone to the tavern to buy empty bottles a couple of rags and the most potent alcohol that they had? My goal was to create a cheap version of cheap version of a wonderful Molotov cocktail.
Of course, I probably don't have to make at least something stronger than a mixture with a combustion temperature higher than eight hundred degrees, besides, the flame will quickly disappear due to the lack of thickener in the form of at least petroleum oil. But worth a try
—---------------------------------------------------
The next morning all three of us gathered in front of the mine, with the Filnjar bringing back my new armor.
-Hold on, - the bag was thrown exactly at me, - will you put it on yourself, or will I help you? -the blacksmith grinned maliciously, thinking that, of course, I would sharply refuse, as it befits any true resident of Nirn over the age of ten.
Unfortunately, the previous owner of my body was raised by his mad uncle that never taught him that and as such, I did not process the required skills. So an issue arose. Should I expose myself as a completely incompetent idiot, putting under doubt my limited usefulness, or else try to figure it out myself? Hard choice.
-I'll be glad if you help me put it on, suddenly it's tight somewhere, you don't want it so that at the most inopportune moment I could not do my part of the job only because the armor you made wouldn't let me? - grinned merrily at him, returning the mild prick of pride back.
- Ugh, - the blacksmith spat and came up to me, - give it back, otherwise, you will ruin it, and then you will blame me and demand compensation.
- I love professionals, - with the same cheerful face, he returned the fabric bag.
In about 10 minutes we were done with putting armor on me and I started to sort my things before the descent when Annekke saw a Molotov cocktail.
-An unpleasant surprise for the spiders. You take this, - I picked up one of the ready-made bottles, - you set it on fire here, - I made a gesture as I bring a torch to a rag - let the fabric flare up well, and then aiming and strongly you throw it, after a second you enjoy how the fire covers the enemy. Works just amazing against everything that can burn in principle.
-Interesting, - the Nord woman was clearly trying to visualize my explanation in her heard
However, she was interrupted by an old blacksmith
- If you are ready grab your stuff and let's go.- he said
Does everyone remember their roles? - asked the only worthy archer among our trio of weak-minded, but brave, rewarding me, especially with a closer look since I was a newcomer, and apparently those two have been spending every second-night drinking and planning this adventure ever since spiders first appeared.
-Uh-huh, stand behind Filnjar, throw flammable cocktails and firebolts at huge spiders, call wolf spirit, and do not expose yourself to your arrows.
-Good- nodding in satisfaction, she turned to the balding Nord - You are the first, Filnjar.
-Keep behind me and don't let me go around- nodded the Nord, dressed in solid steel armor with a thick round shield in one hand and a sword in another.
Blacksmith as our vanguard, I'm in the center with a fire and a bunch of bottles of a mixture of my personal production, and Anneke is in the rear with a bow at the ready.
This is how we opened the doors to the mine abandoned by the miners and entered its dark throat. The first words that climbed on my tongue were: "Fucking darkness", as even with torches in our hands and a ball of light produced by a candlelight spell hovering near us we could not see much.
We moved slowly, carefully looking around, walls, ceiling everything was carefully examined, there was nowhere to rush, if necessary, we can retreat and come back later. Yes, frost spiders breed quite quickly, only the period of their reproduction is calculated in days, and not hours, and growing into a full-fledged individual takes three to four weeks.
And our prudence paid off, Anneke noticed the first arachnid and shot an arrow right between the eyes of the ugly creature, instantly killing the one. The corpse fell from the ceiling a few steps from the feet of our most armored squad member.
-Small one,"- the Nord delivered his verdict, kicking the body of the spider with his foot.
- Fuck what a nasty monster - I never liked spiders and this specimen the size of a pug did not add to my love for their kind one ounce.
- You haven't seen adults yet: paws several meters long, bouncing like grasshoppers, chelicera the size of my elbow, spitting venom and fast as horses.
-"Damn, maybe it's not necessary, I have a very vivid fantasy,"- I asked another man.
- What is there to fantasize about, today you will see everything yourself, - he promised me with a smile
The tunnel through which we walked was a hundred meters long, and all these hundred meters were absolutely devoid of signs of the presence of frost spiders if we do not count the small parasite killed at the beginning.
But everything can't be serene and safe forever, the tunnel ended with it, our calm. Coming out of the tunnel to the first tension bridge, our path was blocked web wall. Going on without alerting the whole hive of your presence, was impossible. The moment we touch the web to destroy it, all the spiders in the cave will know that we are here and come to them.
It was worth clarifying that they are especially hungry because for stable growth they need a lot of food, which there was nowhere to take it. So we have every chance that we should set fire to cobweb blocking the passage to the suspension bridge, as on us after a couple of moments to rush all the inhabitants of this mine.
Looking at each other, we came to a tacit agreement to go ahead on the bridge, on the open and unsafe space was at least stupid. Our best chance was to start drawing out the spiders toward the end of the tunnel and back away slowly toward the entrance.
Staying in a narrow tunnel lit by the light of the many torches that we lit along the way, we had a chance to kill all spiders down to the last individual. A purple sphere instantly formed in my left hand and was thrown at my feet. The call of the spectral wolf familiar to me has passed successfully. A translucent bluish spirit looked at me with an amusing twist of its head.
-So boy, I have a task for you, - crouching in front of his muzzle, I handed him a lit torch, and he immediately grabbed it with his mouth - now run and burn that wall of cobwebs, - the wolf, wagging his tail, ran into the indicated direction.
While he was running, we prepared for a horde of spiders, Filnjar took a steady stand in front, raising the shield to chest level, and the sword peeked out from below under angle, looking up with his deadly blade.
After casting oakfleh on him and myself, I walked away from him literally half a meter, so as not to interfere, in which case have a second opportunity to help him, alas, I was without a shield, but with a sword in my right hand and a bottle of fuel mixture in the left, with magic, I would be able to easily set rag on fire and throw a homemade projectile into the crowd of enemies from behind the back of a large Nord.
Lastly, a heel of meters away from us, Anneke took her position, poking arrows into the ground in front of her.
The wolf obediently ran to the indicated place and turned the burning side torch to the whitening wall, she is reluctant at first, but with every second everything quickly covered in flames, until it burned to the ground, fiery tongues the flames did not stop at just one piece of the web, they spread further along the web, slowly covering the nearest space.
Our ears were immediately filled with the clatter and clicking of dozens of thin legs, and in the light of the dying web, hundreds of eyes stared at us. A spectacle like you staring at dozens of predatory monsters drastically lowered my courage, I even did a couple of steps back, but not completely lost my determination.
-Get ready, Filnjar, it will be hot soon, both literally and figuratively sense.- And then I started to count.
-One, - outlined the most profitable goals, - two, - approximately estimated how much you need to throw a bottle - three! - with my cry, the figure of the old man took half a step inside, so that a dangerous projectile flew half a meter away from him, flew and flew on, just into the muzzle of a huge, adult frosty spider, descended into the passage on a web from somewhere above.
There was a blaze of fire in the tunnel, the heat of the blazing flame reaching my face, and in the air, there was a painful hiss and clatter of a burning-alive spider. Then, mad with pain, it darted from side to side until he stumbled and did not fall down from the suspension bridge into the depths of the mine. Where it's quiet. The death of its kin seemed to have become a red rag for a horde of abominations, and they, not feeling fear, only hunger, rushed at us.
-Fight! - I gave the order to my summon, and he immediately sank his teeth into the shell of one of the smaller spiders, decorating its mouth with green goo.
-Ha! - with a shout with his shield towards the spiders advancing on us, our vanguard, stunned one of them the size of a dog and threw back the heel of a smaller one. While our Archer send a valley of arrows each hitting its target, or so it looked from my perspective at least.
We held them. However, we could not stay in such a position forever. As one of the smaller cat-sized spiders bypassed Filnjar and jumped at me. thankfully I was able to cut with my sword.
- There are too many of them, retreat! - gave the command to our shield, and we started slowly back up.
-Get down! I exclaimed, and as soon as my comrade-in-arms fulfilled my requirements, two doses of cocktail flew over his head at once.
Again the heat of a flashing flame and a deathly chirping burning group of creatures filled the tunnel. My cocktails did their job, burning hard and for a long time. This time, the burning spiders had nowhere to run but like us, but alas, their bodies burned too easily, their thin paws burned first, and the arrows flying from the archer deprived them of any chance to do anything other than being burned alive.
And so their burning remains became an insurmountable barricade for the rest of the arachnids, they did not want to climb into dangerous fire stalled in its attack. What not to say about us, arrows gathered their harvest from the spiders frozen in front of the fire, sticking into their insufficiently strong shells.
Yes, and I myself was not inactive, even if the first wave of spiders destroyed my wolf, I was able to call another. It appeared among the crowd of spiders and immediately began to tear them to pieces, causing a wave of confusion in their ranks, two more cocktails flew deep into the corridor, setting up a fire barrier behind crowds, pinching them between two conflagrations.
And then everything was stabilized with Annekke shooting down any spider that was able to pass the flame barrier separating us. However, despite our success, we were forced to retreat shortly after. The stench of burning bodies and smoke filled the narrow corridor and fighting there became impossible.