Evolution of a Healer

Good thing they had left Scott on the floor above with Sam. The party's concerns were warranted, and almost as soon as the three of them had gone out of sight, Illuminant reinforcements arrived. Thankfully it was just Harvesters, so Scott had no problems keeping them away from Sam so the Warrior could continue to work the crank. In no time at all, the party was back together again.

With the waiting Weaver below dead, and the entrance to the next cavern currently sealed off, Hex had taken the time to relax and start cooking while they were waiting for Sam and Scott to descend. While everyone had a supply of stable travel food, plus their emergency wafers, fresh food was able to give small buffs. And buffs were always good, as long as Cyn did not think too hard about what exactly the Rogue was putting into his little cooking pot.

As the party ate, gaining a small bonus to health regeneration, there were some attempts to strategize. But without knowing what they were getting into, the discussion was limited. The largest concern was that there would be more Spitters and web throwing arachnids, and attempting to track those down would have to mostly be left to Dana and, to a lesser extent, Cyn.

The second largest concern was the fact that the floor would undoubtedly be covered in web. While the Warrior and the Archer were both strong enough to be entirely unbothered, Hex had already shown it still had an effect on him. Scott too was only a little affected, leaving Cyn as the weakest link. Literally, since the problem was her low strength stat. There was no good solution readily available either. The best solution they could come up with was for Sam and Dana to essentially shuffle around to clear an area for her to stand after they got inside and had an idea of what they would be up against. Until then, Sam was going to carry her.

Which Cyn found absolutely mortifying. Obviously the Warrior was strong enough to be able to carry her easily, but still. It was taking the idea of being ‘carried’ through a dungeon a little too literally. Was she still a valuable member of the party? Of course. They probably would have died a while ago, possibly as quickly as the first day, without her help.

Once everyone's resources had fully regenerated, and they were mentally prepared, Scott took the lead to cut open the web wall so the party could enter the cavern. They opened it large enough to take a look inside to get an idea of what they were up against, and luckily nothing attacked straight away. It really did not look too different from the entrance cavern, though it was only about half the size. The major difference came from the sheer number of egg sacks scattered around the cavern in groups, and the swarms of baby Illuminants that were fleeing from the party.

Oh, and the absolutely massive arachnid clinging to the ceiling.

Illuminant Brood Queen - Level 7

This creature is the source of the Illuminant infestation in the area.

Has a potent venom.

The Brood Queen is highly protective of her offspring and mates, and will become enraged if any Illuminant creatures are killed in her presence.

Parts of this creature are edible.

The Weavers had been roughly the size of a truck, and the Brood Queen was a few times larger than that. The creature had made no attempts to camouflage itself, having the same dark coloring that the party had seen on the Harvesters. Since the cavern was coated in the glowing web, she stood out easily. Cyn quickly relayed the information from Inspect to her party, triggering a change of plans. No one wanted to see the Queen become enraged if they could avoid it, so everyone but Cyn was going to go all out on the boss in an attempt to end the fight as quickly as possible, rather than try to play it safe. Cyn was going to be kept in reserve in case the aforementioned mates or other reinforcements showed up after the Queen was dead. And since Hex had already joked he would be ‘standing in the fire’ to get more dps, she would also need the mana to heal the inevitable injuries.

Normally, when Cyn played a healer online, she was more than happy to just let dps die for doing shit like that. But she could forgive it just this once.

With the circumstances as they were Cyn would also be up in melee range. There was just no way she would be able to heal everyone otherwise, and Dana could move around easily enough that if she needed help she could come closer. Scott had gotten some kind of taunt ability when he leveled up, so he was also confident he could keep the Queen's attention for the most part.

The party entered the boss room cautiously, and to everyone's surprise the Queen did not start attacking immediately. She did move, however, and they watched as the spider slowly descended from the ceiling on a thick web rope while making a chittering sound. Dana did not wait for the Queen to finish descending and instead began to fire off arrows. The rest of the party was only about halfway to where the Queen would be touching down, and Cyn held onto Sam tightly as the men broke into a sprint, aiming to reach the creature just as she landed.

Cyn found herself rather unceremoniously dropped by Sam just a few feet from the boss, the Warrior almost immediately jumping up to grab onto one of the Queen’s legs. He probably intended to pull the creature down or pull a leg off, since it had not quite reached the ground yet, but the Queen was clearly tougher than their previous opponents. All the Warrior did was make himself dangle a few moments before nearly getting stabbed by the very leg he was holding onto.

As soon as the Queen was on the ground she lunged for Scott, who had moved himself nearly to the opposite side of the creature from Cyn. A metallic clang rang out as one of the Queen’s fangs hit the Guardian’s shield, the second fang just barely missing him as Scott deflected the attempted bite. Cyn was looking for where Hex went, and barely heard the Archer call out a warning before Cyn was suddenly knocked to the ground. Once again, a large arachnid had fallen down from the ceiling right on top of her. At least this one wasn’t spitting acid.

Illuminant Brood King - Level 6

This creature was created by an Illuminant Brood Queen for the sole purpose of creating more offspring.

Brood Kings are highly protective of their Queen, and will become enraged if she is killed.

Great, unless they were killed at the same time at least one of these creatures was going to get pissed off. Not to mention, the Queen’s description had mentioned mates, plural. The Brood King was about the same size as the Weaver, and physically resembled the Queen, but thankfully due to how short Cyn was having it fall on top of her was only a glancing blow. She was barely able to reflexively raise an arm to protect her head before the Brood King’s fangs descended towards her.

They never made contact. The Brood King was suddenly no longer above her, and instead Cyn saw the Warrior, who was now faintly glowing red. Sam reached down and roughly grabbed her, setting Cyn on her feet before charging back towards the Queen. Cyn quickly looked up, making sure there was nothing else directly above her, before trying to take stock of the situation again. She quickly found the Brood King, nearly on the other side of the cavern and now on the ground at least, charging towards her. A second Brood King caught her eye, going for Dana, who at a glance seemed to be aware of the danger.

Cyn wasn’t able to check on the guys fighting the Queen, needing to help herself before she could help anyone else. Making a split-second decision, she used Mana Ball. The first, and only, time Cyn had used the skill it had taken some time to form the Ball and throw it. Not having any time to waste with the Brood King blitzing towards her, she Overloaded the skill to rapidly form a small Ball before lobbing it at her assailant.

Man, did Mana Ball suck. The Brood King easily dodged the projectile, causing it to sail harmlessly past and explode midair as Cyn let go of her control of the mana. A little bit of flaming acid may have hit the Brood King, but she couldn’t be sure. The creature was practically on top of her again, and she drew her dagger while attempting to aim a pair of mana needles at the Brood King’s fangs.

Yah, she would be sticking to her Freeform Mana Casting needles for the foreseeable future. One of the needles was successful in its mission, severing a fang, and the second pierced into the Brood King near its mouth before dissipating. Without any room to safely dodge, since she was more likely to just get herself stuck on the webs, Cyn braced herself for impact while holding her dagger in front of her with both hands.

The Brood King attempted to bite down on her arms, the remaining fang slicing along one of Cyn’s forearms, and managed to stab itself multiple times in the mouth while Cyn struggled to keep ahold of the dagger. If she had let go, she might have just fallen to the ground, but instead she was carried along as the Brood King continued its charge. The creature had the strength to force her through every impact with the thick strands of Illuminant Web Mass that stretched between the floor and ceiling along the way. The impact with those did not damage Cyn much, just covering her thoroughly with sticky web, unlike the impact with the wall.

Cyn felt some of her ribs break, and she probably cracked her skull. However, while it definitely left her breathless and in pain, it was a lot less damage than she expected. Perhaps a quarter of her health? Maybe she wasn’t as squishy as she thought, and the acid from the Spitter was just particularly nasty. She was, however, now solidly attached to the wall, and the Brood King was still trying to bite off her arms with a single fang and raw bite force.

Knowing it would probably enrage the Queen, but not having much choice and unable to even see her party around the Brood King trying to kill her, Cyn let go of the dagger with one hand and rapidly fired mana needles into her attacker from the inside of its mouth. The needles were smaller than previously, since she was not letting them fully form, but they did not have to pierce the hardened exoskeleton of the arachnid so their effects were greater. The needles tore through its soft organs, ripping the creature apart from the inside out.

The damage quickly overwhelmed the arachnid, and Cyn knew it was dead not just because it started to slide down off her arms, but also because of the horrible scream the Queen released. The sound made her feel dizzyingly nauseous, and she was pretty sure her ears were bleeding. The sound itself seemed to do some damage to her health points, as well. She could still hear, though, and now she could barely make out her party fighting in the distance, illuminated by the glowing webs and the now brightly glowing Queen. Veins of silvery luminescence flooded over the Queen’s exoskeleton, creating a spiderweb pattern across its surface. At first glance Cyn thought her party looked to be doing alright in her absence, but was quickly proved wrong as they all found out what an enraged Brood Queen could do.

Cyn, still stuck to the wall and struggling to free herself with her dagger, watched as Scott raised his shield to block one of the Queen's sharply tipped legs. To her horror the shield appeared to do nothing, its leg stomping straight though both the metal and the Guardian himself as if they were made of air. The creature whirled to then attack Sam, who was still glowing red, and left Scott motionless on the ground.

Panic settled over Cyn’s mind. She was supposed to be the healer, it was her job to make sure everyone made it out of here alive. Not only had she caused the boss to enrage, she was now stuck too far away to do anything about it. She made it free of the wall, falling onto an equally stuck position on the web covered ground. Struggling to stand, she watched helplessly as Sam, who had been managing to use his brute strength to prevent the Queen from landing a significant hit on him, was struck by one of the arachnids' venom-filled fangs. It ripped a chunk from the Warrior’s shoulder, who roared in response but did not stop attacking back.

Cyn was stuck on her hands and knees in the webbing and, frustrated, she vented out raw mana from both hands, trying to will the mana to dissolve the web. She wasn’t sure it would work, but she had to try something, anything.

Much to her surprise and relief, it worked perfectly, the web dissolving almost instantly around her hands. Cyn was still too far away from her party, who were still at the center of the cavern, though. Her mana was running low from killing the Brood King, too low to try and use this new trick to make it back to everyone, and her health was still too high for her boots to have much of an effect on her resource regeneration. There was only one solution she could see, and she took it without hesitation.

Cyn raised her dagger, and stabbed herself.

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