In the danger zone close to Willow city, five people where standing before a cave. The cave went straight down into the earth so it was more like a hole.
One of the men took a small stone and threw it into the hole cave. About thirty seconds later, the sound of the stone hitting the bottom of the cave was heard.
"That's quite deep" Chris commented.
"Is this really the spider's habitat or is it just a random hole it happened to fall into?" Zane said.
"Zane you never attended hunting school did you?" David said.
"No" Zane said with narrowed eyes.
"Thought so" David answered.
"We have to lure it, or them, out of the cave" David said.
"How?" Chris asked.
"We are going to tie you to a string and lower you into the hole. Hopefully we will be able to pull you out before you are eaten alive" Adam said.
Chris laughed "Nice one Adam, didn't know you where also good at jokes"
"Clara you got the rope?" David asked and Chris' heart involuntarily started beating faster.
"Yeah here it is" Clara took out a very old looking rope from her ring "It has seen better days though, hope it will hold Chris' weight"
Zane sighed "With all that bread he ate back at the village, I'm not so sure"
Now Chris was definitely sweating, Zane has never been the joking type "Ohh come on guys i know i don't bring much to the table but you can't do this!" he cried.
"Im sorry Chris we don't have a choice, you know how life is, but we will do our best to ensure your survival" David said, he was really not comfortable with using Chris as bait.
"NO!!!! no please don't I'll do anything!" Chris was getting desperate. He thought of running away but they were in the beast zone and he was just a mortal, he wouldn't survive even a few minutes.
"Pffff" Clara failed to contain her laughter anymore.
"HAHAHA! ohh my Celestial you should have seen your face!" she was rolling on the ground by now.
The rest of the team also started laughing as their prank had already been discovered, except....
"Wait, this was a joke!?. I thought you guys where serious!" Zane exclaimed. A part of him had accepted Chris' death.
"It wasn't funny guys! Not funny at all. Fuck you all!" Chris shouted as he wiped off the tears on his face.
"Ohh come on Chris you would do the same to us if you got the chance" David said with a smile, which quickly disappeared a split second later "Ok fun time is over let's get back to work" he ordered.
Zane was slightly surprised by David's instantaneous change of mood.
"We still need to lure them out though, we could jump inside but we would be at a disadvantage fighting in their lair" David said with narrowed eyes.
Zane looked at the hunters as they all seemed to be deep in thought "No offense guys but is this your first time fighting toxic spiders?" he asked.
Adam smirked "Actually between the three of us we have killed over 10 toxic spiders"
"Then what's the problem ?" Zane asked.
David smiled "You are quite smart Zane, we wanted to see what ideas you two would come up with"
"Ohh so this is a test?" Zane asked.
"Yep" said Adam.
"Why though?" Chris asked, he couldn't understand why David and the twins would waste time like that.
"Because it's fun" David shrugged his shoulders.
"Well it was fun, now that you know the truth it has lost its spark" Adam commented.
"Let's get serious" David said.
"Rock"
"Paper"
"Scissors"
"I thought they where going to get serious" Zane mumbled.
"Adam you're it" Clara said.
"Fuck" Adam cursed.
SHING!
The next second, someone's arm was rolling on the ground and Adam was missing an arm. If Zane hadn't seen Adam's mana moving, he would have thought they where under attack.
Clara quickly burnt Adam's stump as well as the end of the arm which was oozing blood.
'At this rate i will run out of mana before the fight even begins' Zane thought as he laid his eyes on what was left of Adam's arm.
However, Zane's worries where unnecessary as Adam quickly took out a pill from his ring. Which he proceeded to eat. Zane had seen this pill before, it was a mana pill. The same one his mother had taken back then.
Zane wondered why they didn't just use pills all the time but then the answer to that cane to him rather quickly 'The pills are more expensive' he thought.
The other reason was that a healer could refil their mana reserves while on the mission, so even if every member of the team gets severely injured they could just retreat and heal.
However if the team only had mana pills, sooner or later they would run out of them, and would have to go back to town to buy more, using more noney in the process.
"You only heal injuries which are inflicted to us by the enemy" Adam said. He had seen Zane's look.
Zane snapped out of his thoughts and noticed how fast the mana pill worked.
It wasn't as fast as his healing but it was quite fast. Adam had cut off his arm at the shoulder but it had already healed up to the elbow.
David took the rope from Clara and tied the severed arm to one end.
'So that's their plan' Zane thought.
David then took a stick and tied it to the other end of the rope, basically making a fishing rod. Adam's healing arm was now only missing the hand.
David proceeded to throw their 'bait' into the hole before sticking the rod into the ground.
Suddenly three chairs appeared, surrounding the hole.
David, Adam and Clara then sat on a chair each with no care in the world. David took out a book, which he proceeded to read.
Clara was doing something with her nails which were surprisingly very neat considering her job.
David was throwing a small stone in the air, then catching it with his newly healed arm. If Zane didn't know better he would say they where on vacation, they seemed so relaxed!!.
Zane stepped forward "Ummm guys---"
"Woah, hold it right there pretty boy" Clara suddenly said with her arm outstretched towards Zane.
'Pretty boy?' Zane thought with a raised eyebrow. Before he could ask what the problem was, David spoke up.
"Step back Zane the spiders will attack anytime from now" David said while flipping a page from his book.
Zane's eye twitched 'What!? , you are the ones who are acting like we are on a tropical island!!' Zane thought. However these people weren't new to their jobs, they probably knew what they where doing so Zane just let it go and walked back to Chris.
Zane noticed that Chris had a really worried look on his face as he watched the three tourists on vacation.
"You are also worried right?" Zane said as he reached Chris.
Chris snapped out of his stupor "What?"
"I mean you are worried that they aren't serious about this hunt" Zane repeated as he gestured at the trio.
"Ohh no I am regretting not carrying some bread from the village, I'm getting quite hungry" Chris said
Zane was about to reply when a loud explosion disturbed his train of words.