Dressed to Kill 18 (Patreon)

The second floor opened up before us. Sandy paused feet away from the glowing archway, the light of dawn dancing through the trees. The wind carried the scent of the forest, pushing about loose strands of my hair to tickle my face.

Sandy breathed heavily, closing her eyes and drinking in air. Then she laughed.

“Are you alright?” I asked, looking at her. I dipped my hands into my pockets and stared out at the forest sprawling out away from us. It was much less welcoming now that I knew what lurked in the shadows around it.

“It’s just so much easier.” She said. “So much easier when I’m not… alone.”

Her eyes scanned the forests shadows above.

“Yeah.” I said, looking up. “I probably wouldn’t be back here so soon without you.”

“I don’t see anything from the tracking skill yet.” Sandy said, still scanning. One of her hands was on her oversized butcher knife.

She stepped forward into the path that wove between the dungeon’s walls, leading the way into the dark.

I stayed closed behind her, watching the ground while she watched the trees.

“Found one.” Sandy said, staring up at the trees.

The monster seemed to notice.

There was a rush as the spider descended with spider web behind it, dropping straight towards Sandy. She started to pull her cleaver free.

She wouldn’t manage it fast enough.

[Running Stitch I] [Mana: 8/10] [Cancel]

[+4 XP]

My needle caught the spider in midair before it could land on Sandy. Green bug juice splattered on both of us.

“Nice save.” Sandy said, resting a hand on my shoulder. 

I was panting, standing extended with the spider dangling off my needle.

Slowly, I lowered the needle, letting it fall off the edge. The spider’s body crumpled to the ground. I sighed in relief.

Sandy held her blade out in front of herself, its menacing form gleaming in the dawn’s light. We stepped deeper into the shadowy area of the forest.

“Another one.” Sandy said after a few minutes. A hiss and a rush of air answered her as the spider descended, though she was ready this time. Her blade rang out as the metal hit chitin, the spider’s hiss rising in volume.

Its legs went one way and its body went the other, rolling through the forest floor.

The web behind it pulled taught and it started to climb upward with only half it’s legs, the other half sloughing out monster flesh and seeping viscous green.

I stabbed it through the face.

[Running Stitch I] [Mana: 7/10] [Cancel]

[+4 XP]

The needle slammed into the tree behind the monster, embedded in the bark. I put a boot to the spider’s spell and yanked to pull the needle free, spilling more spider blood onto myself.

My hands were covered in the gunk. I looked down at my hands, rubbing it between my fingers.

“What are you doing?” Sandy asked.

“Do you think this would make a good pigment?” I asked.

“The hell, Gwen?” Sandy said. 

“For Terry to paint with. She’s always looking for more pigments.” I turned back to see her face turned up and snorted. “What? It’s just monster blood.”

“Only you would be thinking about making paint out of monster corpses.” She shook her head.

“What does that mean?” I asked. “I mean, we might as well not waste it, right?”

Sandy laughed.

“Yeah. Why not. Sure. I’ll bottle some blood when I cut it up.”

The third spider was practically routine when we fought it. Sandy hit it like a batter, sending it flying. By the time we killed the fourth, she had figured out how to swing at the falling monsters, using their weight against them.

The fourth spider hit the ground in two pieces.

“How many on this floor you think?” I asked.

“More than four.” Sandy replied.

We were nearing the end of the wooded trail that led towards the end of the dungeon. The sun was rising in the dungeon — or whatever magical source passed as the sun was growing brighter, the red light giving way for bright white light, peeling back the shadows of the forest.

There were no landmarks.

The forest seemed to change each time I had passed through it. Though that might have been because each journey through it seemed to destroy every tree inside. First the fire, then Valjean singled handedly cutting down the entire treeline.

There was a rush of air above me. I looked up in time to invoke my skill, the magic rectifying my aim and stabbing the needle forward with a crunch.

[Running Stitch I] [Mana: 5/10] [Cancel]

[XP +4] [Level up] [Excess Discarded]

Sandy screamed. I whipped around to see a sixth spider had bit into her back. She was facing the same direction as me.

Panic and fear rose in my stomach, manifesting as nausea. My legs shook as I forced myself forward, activating the skill again.

[Running Stitch I] [Mana: 4/10] [Cancel]

[XP +3] 

Sandy staggered forward. The monster’s corpse was still on her back. I reached out and grabbed it, wrapping my hands around the cool chitin of its legs and throwing it away.

“Sandy?” I asked. She staggered forward to the tree, laid a hand on it, and vomited.

“S’good.” She said. “Fine. I’m fine.”

She turned to face me. A black line streaked up from under her cloak and onto her face.

It pulsed.

She doubled over and wretched.

I threw my backpack to the ground with shaking hands and pulling free the potion. Sandy slunked to the ground.

Sandy closed her eyes, pushing a hand up through her hair.

“Hurts like a bitch.” She said.

“Keep your eyes open.” I said. “Stay awake. What’s your health at?”

Sandy blinked as I held the potion up to her. Then she slapped a hand down on top of it.

“Not that bad.” She said. “Just need a sec. Poison won’t — “

She twitched as the black streak running up her face pulsed.

I pushed the potion up to her mouth. She shoved it back weakly.

“Got more than ten left. Hold on.” Sandy said.

The black line streaking up her face pulsed one more time and then faded, leaving behind a patch of only slightly discolored skin.

Sandy groaned.

“Hurts like a bitch. Seventeen left.” Sandy said.

“Seventeen?” I asked, still holding the potion back but not forcing it towards her.

“Health.” Sandy barked a laugh, before pushing herself up to her feet. She winced at moving her back. “Not my first. Won’t be my last. Not the worst I’ve had.”

“What do you mean it’s not the worst you had? You just got bit by a monster!” I was shouting now. “Sit down!”

Sandy rolled her eyes, but sat back down.

There was a rumble through the ground, a quiet pulse that I was familiar with now. The dungeon floor was cleared, and the next floor was progressing towards opening.

“Poison hurts.” Sandy said with a shrug. Then she winced at moving her back for the shrug. 

I frowned and pushed myself all the way to my feet.

“Let me see.”

I pulled free cloth strips for makeshift bandages and pain numbing poultices from Terry, sitting behind Sandy. The cloth strips had to be wrapped all the way around, tight to her back. The discoloration was worse at the location of the bite, still black but no longer pulsing.

“It’s bad.” I said, staring at the bandages.

“It’s nothing a long rest wont fix.” Sandy said.

She wasn’t wrong. A long rest fixed damage to my lungs and restored my mana.

“Why?” I asked, thinking aloud.

“Because the potions damn expensive. I don’t want to waste it. What if there’s an actual emergency, like—”

“No I mean why does a long rest heal us like this? At first I just thought, you know, it’s magic. Like the rest of this world. Didn’t question it.”

“Magic? It’s just the way things work.” Sandy turned around and frowned.

“Yeah. I mean, it’s almost like how the dungeons reset themselves overnight.” I said, looking up at the trees. The forest looked like old growth, like it had existed for years and decades, not been regrown only a night ago.

“It’s how things are.” Sandy said, shrugging. She didn’t wince as badly this time.

“Feel better?” I asked.

“Yeah.” She said before standing. “Which ones do we want?”

I looked out over the spiders. Almost every one had a different color, shining shells with metallic reds and blues and purples striped with ivory white.

“The red ones, I think.” I said, packing my backpack.

We ended up managing to drag four out. I filled my backpack with handfuls of knotted web. The sun had fallen outside of the dungeon by the time we left and we carried the bodies in the dark.

I kept taking sneaking looks over at Sandy. Besides grunting a little more than normal she seemed fine.

She even started working when we got into the work shop.

“You can’t wait a day to butcher those?” I asked.

Sandy had a spider on the table, lining up its legs with a gloved hand while another brought her butcher sword down to chop off the legs.

“Times wasting. What do you think happens when Valjean comes back?”

“We have a month.” I replied, looking around the room before taking a seat on Sandy’s bed.

She turned to look at me.

“We only have a month. He’s not going to come back empty handed. He’ll be bringing an investigator, or…” Sandy trailed off, turning back around and flipping the spider over. She grunted as she cut off another set of legs and pushing them into a bucket. “A priest or a tracker.” She finished.

“Which is a good reason to just avoid the dungeon for a few days.” I replied.

“By the time we’re a month into clearing, we can leave it uncleared for a few days.”

Sandy grunted in reply, setting her gigantic butcher knife aside in favor of a different one. She split the shell of the spider, pulling it to pieces and throwing the cut up chitin chunks onto the floor. The smoothed surfaces rolled around, glittering in the lamp light.

“Were you serious about the bug blood?” She asked suddenly, turning around.

“I… yeah. Why not.” I replied.

She pulled another bucket free from under the desk, placing it under a hook behind her. Then she stabbed into the spider and sliced it in half with a terrible tearing noise. Blood dripped onto the table.

She slammed the spider onto the hook and turned to the next corpse.

“How fast do you think you can finish our next set of armor?”

I mentally pulled at the Shell Dress pattern and the pieces I would need to assemble.

“We’ll need leather. We can use the wolves for that, but we’ll need fabric too. I’m not sure how much I can steal before mom notices. But maybe I’ll get a skill that can help.”

“Forgot how nice it is to level up constantly.” Sandy said, grumbling.

I pulled open the skill shop.

[Skill Shop]

►Mending I

[COMMON] Allows user to repair clothing from patterns they are unfamiliar with. Additional levels increase quality of final product.

►Pattern Projection I

[COMMON] Seamstress vision skill. Grants user access to a pattern overlay on fabric. 

►Embellishment I

[COMMON] Allows user generated embellishments to raise clothings quality level and change its properties. Additional levels increase the available embellishments and their properties. Grants Thread Mastery I