Boots of Booty | ONC 2023

Part 8

20. Cage

"Stop, Netherlue!" shouted one of the incubi.

"Feck," muttered Tash. She tested her strength against the strands of web and knew instant defeat. The pair stood helpless.

The spider dropped to the slick rock of the chamber floor. Séa and Tash gasped. It was not a spider. The eight knob-jointed legs and fat abdomen resembled a monstrous black widow spider. But a humanoid torso protruded from the arachnoid body. With black skin that matched its exoskeleton, the torso and head resembled that of a red-eyed elf. The purple light glinted from its muscular anatomy. Belts crossed its bare chest and held twin scimitars.

"A drider," Séa said. "I guess they're real, after all."

It sent a glare at the twin incubi. Its voice rumbled in a petulant basso, "Dickwads. Do, don't. Left, right. Up, down. Protect us from the incoming holy warriors, don't protect us. How about I eat you, next time?"

Fazzet slid a handsome eyebrow high. "We didn't know they'd been subverted by Sarophax's circlet." The near-twin incubi strolled closer, affecting a casual air.

Oxter raised his own sculpted eyebrow. "Yeah. Gosh, Netherlue."

The spiderlike monstrosity inspected the imprisoned duo: an intimidating, red-eyed, hungry appraisal. Netherlue the drider said, "So what do you two geniuses want now?"

Oxter raised his nose ceilingward. "Toss them in a cage and unbind them."

Fazzet also eyed the naked women. "I see blood. Sarophax has enjoyed them before us."

"We need a bed." Oxter's voice came strained and urgent. "Badly."

Netherlue hissed like a steam engine scaling a cobra. "You useless blobs of congealed bile! I'm hungry, and all you can think about is sex? I hate you so much."

Fazzet raised a finger and ticked it back and forth. "Now, now, my leggy friend. You know perfectly well who is whose boss."

"Get on with it." Oxter pointed to the cages.

Four cubes of welded iron bars lay not far from the glowing rune circle. One of them seemed occupied. A ragged dress lay in one corner, listlessly occupied by a forlorn woman. Her face turned away from the action as if she lay ill, injured, or uncaring. Matted gray and black hair topped a dirt-smeared face.

The drider thrust its front spider claws toward Séa's and Tash's feet. The pair twitched and grimaced, but only the sticky threads suffered injury. The strands shriveled and shrank away. The next instant, spider legs embraced the pair and lifted from the floor. Their faces mashed against the cold belly of the monster as the lumpy, bar-like legs crushed them from below.

Séa choked out, "Endurer, preserve us."

Fortunately, the journey lasted only seconds. The drider dumped them painfully onto a grid of iron bars. One of Tash's wine bottles, now glued to her hand, clanked against metal. Improbably, it stayed whole. "I will eat your flesh," the drider promised them with a puff of decay-scented breath. It scuttled in a semicircle to face the incubi. "And dinner had better be soon, you odiferous weeping boils."

Oxter jingled keys and swung the gate shut. His square-jawed smile artfully reassured. His disarmingly sincere voice soothed. "Worry not, ladies. Fazzet and I will solve a certain technical problem related to successful romance, and then we'll return. Our only goal is to delight your senses, soothe your troubled minds, and ignite your passions. Ignore this petulant spider." As his alluring musk tickled the women's nostrils he snicked the cage lock shut.

Séa inhaled. Tash whispered urgently in Séa's ear. "Shh!"

Galvanized by the rogue's urgency, the paladin managed to cool her planned string of defiant proclamations to a sort of wordless moan. "Yeaarrrmmmg!"