The Spider's Lair

Prologue

Prologue

The Starlight Spear

The group anxiously arrived at the third and final door of the Deladar Vault. Two doors rose high enough to reach the forty-foot ceiling above. Upon each of the brass-coloured behemoths was the insignia of a spider and at their base, a pair of doorknobs made to look like balls of silk. The battles to get here hadn't been too troubling, especially with the help of their newest member, Morana. She was an adventurer like them and her temperament was enough to impress a group calling themselves "The Starlight Spear."

On first impressions, the group was without a doubt a collection of naive simpletons yearning for stardom and riches. Morana sized them up as lesser than her in intellect; even combined for that matter, but they had quickly accepted her offer to loot this vault so she could not be choosey. The fact they had agreed to aid her so willingly was enough to forgive them of their intolerable shortcomings. The heavyset fighter, Duke, thought himself the leader of the group out of a principle of size alone was especially intolerable.

To enter such a vault was forbidden but it hadn't taken much convincing on her end, especially after hinting at the potential gold and—more importantly—Deladar artifacts to fully convince them. The capital of Lupos paid handsomely for such finds.

"When this is all over baby," he had said to her, his breath heavy with ale "I'll show you the girth doesn't stop below the waist"

Morana could do little in response but gag at the thought of his "girth" on top of her. Truth be told, she preferred the softer aspects when it came to attraction. Their cleric Olivia overly compensated in such regards with long golden hair which shimmered while draping down past her hips, its natural appearance being forever glossy and perfect. Her face portrayed similar features to those fair virgins depicted in books. She was young, with Morana guessing early twenties, but she could have been younger, and without a doubt a virgin. Morana had an eye for such things and the girl radiated purity in all its aspects. The standalone fact that she had to avoid the consistent advances from Duke had her sympathies.

It was not just Duke's advances that chased her, bringing her to the third member of the Starlight Spear, an older man pushing the edge of fifty for sure. His talents as a hedge wizard had kept him in the game of treasure hunting for some time, apparently. Or maybe it was just his insatiable desire for gold. Regardless, his frailty was obvious enough from just looking at him. Tim was a renowned wizard in his youth—or so he claimed. Supposedly, everyone in the capital knew him by sight once upon a time...long...long ago. But that begged the question: why he is this far west tagging along with this lot? Morana figured him to be just another old man with fake stories to compensate for his boring and mediocre life, stories that no one would disprove because all that could were dead. His old age, however, hadn't seemed to slow his desires for women, specifically much younger women to boot, and when Duke was away emptying his bladder or passed out drunk, Tim would circle in like a vulture and seedily try his luck. When Morana thought about it, Olivia must have been relieved now there was a new addition to this would-be group. Now that Morana and her more robust beauty were present within the group, Olivia could relax knowing her maidenhood was not in as much immediate danger.

There was indeed a third female in the group, but her beauty could have been compared to that of a goblin. Maybe. The group's rogue was a spiny and withered thing, providing no intrigue from either Duke, or Tim. As well as her dark robes which hung off her loosely, she also had the strange tendency of sitting like a frog atop chairs and bars, which was usually enough to avert the most lustful of eyes. The girl was also deathly pale and never talked. To this day, the Starlight Spear hadn't got her name so just called her 'Widow', assuming she probably had a man at one time but ate him along with her own children. Morana didn't care much about such rumours and shared the group's enthusiasm that so long as she could kill effectively, who cares who she was.