Chapter 77: No One Left Behind [FIXED 05/18!]

Jason ran with the cocoon clutched against his chest, its warm, pulsing surface pressing into his leather cuirass. The silk was slick, almost wet, and every few steps something inside shifted and squirmed.

The tunnel shook around them. Dust filled the air. Cracks spread across the walls like veins.

They burst out of the narrow passage and into a wider chamber—and standing there, weapons drawn, bodies battered, were Helga and Mira.

Helga’s dark eyes went wide. "Little meat! You’re alive!"

"Barely!" Jason gasped, skidding to a halt.

Mira’s amber eyes swept over the group—Ylva, Thalion, Mae, and Jason clutching the strange cocoon. Her tail flicked once.

"Where’s Kaelen?" Jason demanded, his chest heaving.

Helga’s face fell. Her grip tightened on her warhammer.

"The queen," Helga said, her voice low. "A spider queen. She took him. Dragged him into the darkness. I couldn’t stop her."

Jason’s blood ran cold. "Is he alive?"

"I don’t know. He was alive when she took him. Told me to find the others. To warn them." Helga’s jaw tightened. "I’ve been trying to get back ever since."

Mira stepped forward. "We need to keep moving. That thing behind us—"

"Is still coming," Ylva finished, her ears swiveling toward the tunnel they had just exited. "I can hear it."

Jason looked at the cocoon in his arms. Then at Helga. Then at the dark passage behind them.

He made a decision.

"Go," he said. "All of you. Get out of here. Find the exit."

Ylva’s eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, go?"

"I’m staying behind." Jason’s voice was steady. "I’m going to find Kaelen."

Silence.

Helga stared at him. Mira raised an eyebrow. Even Thalion looked surprised.

"You’re what?" Helga asked, her voice flat.

"I’m staying. The rest of you go ahead."

Ylva grabbed his arm. Her claws dug into his leather cuirass. "You can’t be serious. You’re barely standing. You have no combat training. You’re carrying a—" She glanced at the cocoon. "—whatever that is. And you want to go back into a collapsing cave to find a reptile you’ve known for less than a week?"

Jason met her green eyes. "Yes."

"Why?"

Because Kaelen was the only one who had treated him like a person from the start. Not a curiosity. Not a tool. Not a potential threat. Just... a person.

But Jason didn’t say that.

"Because he’d do the same for me," Jason said instead.

Helga snorted. "He wouldn’t. Kaelen is loyal to his guild. Not to strangers."

"Then I’ll prove him wrong." Jason shifted the cocoon in his arms. "Now go. Take this with you."

He held the cocoon out toward Mae.

The cow woman’s brown eyes widened. "You want me to carry it?"

"I want you to keep it safe. Whatever hatches from that thing—it’s important. More important than me." Jason pressed the cocoon into her arms. "Don’t let anything happen to it."

Mae hesitated, then nodded. "I’ll protect it with my life."

"That’s what I’m afraid of." Jason turned to Ylva. "Go with them. Keep them safe."

Ylva’s ears flattened. "I’m not leaving you."

"You are. Because I’m asking you to."

She stared at him for a long moment. Her jaw tightened. Her claws retracted.

"If you die," she said quietly, "I’ll never forgive you."

"Then I won’t die."

Helga shook her head, her braided beard swinging. "I don’t understand you, little meat. You’re risking your life for someone who wouldn’t do the same for you."

"Maybe." Jason shrugged. "But that’s not why I’m doing it."

Mira studied him with those half-lidded amber eyes. "What’s in the cocoon?"

Jason brushed off the question. "A long shot."

"That’s not an answer."

"It’s the only one you’re getting."

Another tremor shook the cave. Dust rained down from the ceiling. Somewhere behind them, the creature shrieked.

Helga kissed her teeth. "We don’t have time for this. If you’re staying, stay. But don’t expect us to come back for you."

"I won’t."

Mira grabbed Helga’s arm and pulled her toward the far tunnel. "Move. Now."

Ylva lingered for a moment. Her golden eyes met Jason’s one last time.

"You better come back," she said.

Then she turned and ran after the others.

Mae followed, the cocoon clutched to her chest, her hooves clicking against the stone. Thalion brought up the rear, his pale eyes glancing back at Jason one final time before disappearing into the darkness.

Jason stood alone in the chamber.

The vibrations were getting closer. The shrieks were getting louder.

He looked down at his hands. Empty now. No cocoon. No weapon. Just his bruised knuckles and his racing heart.

The creature that spoke to me, Jason thought. It wasn’t the queen. It was just another spider. One that had evolved.

If that thing could evolve, what else could?

Jason took a deep breath and walked toward the tunnel Kaelen had been dragged into.

Behind him, the cave continued to crumble.

-

Kaelen had managed to kill the majority of the eggs.

Cocoon after cocoon burst under his claws, their contents spilling onto the stone floor in dark, viscous streams. He moved through the chamber like a storm, tearing and ripping and shredding everything within reach. The silk wrapped around his arms, his chest, his legs, but he didn’t stop.

He knew he could not let them hatch.

Whatever was inside these things—these twisted, pulsing sacs of chitin and venom—could not be allowed to enter the world. The hosts were as good as dead already. He had seen their faces through the translucent silk. Reptiles of various families, a few orcs, even a few dwarves and goblins. All of them captured, cocooned, waiting to be consumed from within.

Kaelen destroyed the sixtieth cocoon.

Then the seventieth.

His claws were raw. His scales were cracked. His vision swam.

The chamber had held over a hundred cocoons when he first woke up. Now less than thirty remained. But the more cocoons he destroyed, the weaker he got. Because this place was laced with something—the cocoons themselves, or maybe the silk that held them. A toxin. A poison. Something that seeped into his bloodstream through his claws, his eyes, his open wounds.

It wasn’t killing him.

But it was affecting him, and Kaelen knew even he had his limits and he was fast approaching it at this rate.

Despite his immunity to poisonous gases—the natural resistance of his reptilian body, honed over centuries—this was different. This was concentrated. Designed specifically to bring down large creatures. To make them slow. To make them weak.

To make them easy prey for consumption.

"Shit," Kaelen muttered under his breath.

His vision became blurry. The chamber spun around him. He staggered, catching himself on a nearby cocoon, his claws sinking into the silk.

This was not the worst part.

He heard them.

Multiple spiders. Rushing toward him from all directions. Footsteps—dozens of them, skittering across the stone, echoing off the walls. Coming from the tunnels. Coming from the darkness. Coming from everywhere.

Every single direction.

Kaelen’s yellow eyes darted left, right, up. There was no escape. No exit. No hole to crawl through. The queen had chosen this chamber specifically. A trap within a trap.

And he was out of time.

Behind him, the remaining cocoons began to hatch.

The silk split. The contents spilled out. Small, glistening shapes dropped to the floor, twitching, unfolding legs that were too long, eyes that were too many.

Kaelen turned.

He counted at least twenty. Maybe more. They were smaller than the queen—much smaller—but there were so many of them. And more were hatching every second.

He could not destroy everything in time.

So he knew he had to fight.

Kaelen raised his claws. His body swayed. His vision blurred and cleared, blurred and cleared. The poison was working its way through his veins, slowing him down, dulling his reflexes.

But he would not go down without a fight.

He braced himself for the worst case scenario. His legs spread shoulder-width apart. His tail lashed behind him. His yellow eyes locked onto the nearest hatchling.

Deep down, he knew there was no way he was going to survive.

There were too many. He was too weak. The poison was too strong. Even if he killed every spider in this chamber, the queen was still out there. And she would come back. And she would find him.

But Kaelen knew something else.

If the cave came down—if Helga’s rampage had weakened the structure enough—he could use that. He needed to keep the spiders distracted. Draw their attention. Give the others time to escape.

And the only way to seal these things in was to destroy the entrance.

Kaelen glanced at the tunnel behind him. The one he had come through. The one that led back to the others.

If he could collapse it—if he could bring the ceiling down on that passage—the spiders would be trapped in this chamber with him.

And he would be trapped with them.

"So be it," Kaelen growled.

The hatchlings charged.