With the right way to deal with the poison available to us, we rushed back to the village. But at the same time, Riley was stopping us and pointing to various plants that we should gather during our small trip. While they did have a good amount of supplies for the poison, they wanted more just to be sure that no one was going to be left without any medicine. And that was the only delay, as the Witch was also making those pills as we moved. And while they had the skill to create that medicine with just their hands, that was limited to one pill at a time. After just a handful of antidotes, it became clear that there was something else that was going to be a problem for them.
"Shit." Riley turned towards me. "Is there any way to get Energy faster?"
I nodded. "There is. Drink this." I passed my water skin that still had some Eater's blood left in it. "Take small sips. It's going to be more than enough to top you up."
They frowned at my comment but followed my recommendation. "Damn. This is powerful." They quickly made three more pills of antidote before taking another sip. "What is this?"
"I'm not sure you're going to want to know," I replied.
Michael noted, "Yeah. Trust me. You don't want to know."
Riley glanced at me again, but I just shrugged, not wanting to get into the details. Not just because it was a bit disgusting, but also because then I would need to explain the fact that we had killed some Eaters. And that felt like the conversation for a different time.
We reached the village not long after and quickly ran towards the chief's house, where all the people struggling with the poison were located. But taking care of the people who were poisoned wasn't as easy as it was taking care of the Frosted Lumberjack. And not just because Astrid had the System to help guide the antidote to the right location in her body. The main issue was that those who were injured had been hurt by the spiders a while ago. This meant that the poison had progressed much further, which made the doses required to fight off the symptoms much stronger than what Riley was making.
They were still able to create a more concentrated dose of the antivenom, but it required more plants, which caused most of the remaining people in the village to be tasked with gathering them so Riley could continue their work.
While that was happening, Astrid, Michael, and I stepped to the side to have a brief conversation about our next steps.
"Should we go now?" Michael asked. "After the spiders, I mean."
"It's not a bad idea, but maybe we should wait for Riley," I suggested.
"Who?" Michael frowned.
I let out a sigh and pointed to the Witch, realizing I made a mistake. "Don't use their name, please."
Michael nodded in understanding that maybe he shouldn't address Riley by their name. But Astrid continued the conversation. "We need them."
I nodded, "Yeah. We don't know if we're going to have to face more poisonous spiders, and having someone who can make antidotes on the fly would be very helpful. Not to mention that we don't know the types of skills they're going to get once they start leveling up. If they lean into the witch aspect, we might have some actual magic on our side."
"You think they can use magic even at tier 1?" Michael glanced at Riley.
I shrugged. "Maybe. I could make my staff grow at tier zero, so it's not impossible to do something weird. But I don't know."
Michael looked around, "Ok, but I don't want to just stick around for now, so I'll be trying to see if there's anything more about the spiders we can learn from the villagers."
"That's a good call," I turned to Astrid, "Do you want to do anything?"
"Check perimeter. No more attacks."
Michael and I nodded, agreeing with the suggestion, and I turned back to look at Riley. "I'll stay here then. Help them if they need anything, and call you in case something happens."
We nodded and split up once more, each responsible for something. It took Riley close to 3 hours to stabilize everyone. There was a lot to do and everyone here was split between gathering the supplies, creating the medicine, and having people eat or drink it. Then, they spent another hour, where they almost emptied my Eater blood water skin, creating another set of antidotes that the people should take in the morning.
It was already getting late, which meant that we had the option of either going hunting in the middle of the night or sticking around. Both options sounded bad, for different reasons, of course. If we were to stay, we had no way of knowing how many more people the spiders killed in the meantime. And if we were to go after them, well, we would be going after spiders in the middle of the night. Black spiders, as if we were not going to have enough problems seeing things in the darkness.
"We should go now," Riley eventually said while we were having that discussion. "The more we talk about this, the longer it's going to take for us to make a decision, and the worse the people's capture will be. I get that you're trying to have everybody speak their mind and have a say in what we need to do, but sometimes someone needs to take charge," Riley explained.
And honestly, I agreed with them. This was the first real situation where Michael, Astrid, and I had a chance to work together to solve a problem where we had different perspectives. But we were spending way too much time just talking about what to do instead of actually doing anything. I had gotten caught up with the idea that everybody should have an opinion on what we were doing and forgot that sometimes we just had to act, not talk about it.
"Okay. I agree. We go now." I turned to Riley. "You're coming?"
I waited, not wanting them to feel forced to follow us along, but really hoping they would say yes. Thankfully, Riley grabbed their bag, pulling it over their shoulder. "Of course. We don't know how badly injured the people you find will be. And something tells me neither of you knows exactly what to do in a situation like that."
We all nodded and headed out, even despite some of the protests from a couple of villagers who said that we should stick around and wait at least until morning. The four of us were running in the direction that the spiders went after the attack. We hoped that by following that path, we would find their nest or whatever they were using as a home base.
Even though those creatures had the System too, they seemed to behave more or less like they were normal spiders. It was very different from Rex and the rest of the Rodenti, who created an entire civilization.
Once we got far enough away from the village, I turned to Riley and asked, "Were you really saying that we needed to go after the people to help them just because of that, or because you want some levels?"
Riley gave me a blank stare. "Do I have to choose?"
And I just smiled at that answer. I was pretty sure it was the same for me. Honestly, even Astrid should be in the same boat. The only one who might genuinely be doing this only to help people was Michael, which was very good, but at the same time a bit strange to think about.
While Riley had their moment to shine, helping the people who were injured, they were less than helpful when it came to following tracks left behind by monsters. It was pretty obvious that this type of thing was not something they ever had to worry about. Maybe their mentor had a way to trap animals, or they just lured them with a potion or something, or maybe they were completely vegetarian. But one way or another, expecting Riley to help with the tracking of the spiders was useless, which wasn't a problem since Michael and I were more than capable of doing that.
It took us just a few moments to find the tracks since the big spiders didn't seem to worry about hiding their movements, and we continued following them to where I was assuming would be their nest.
The hours kept ticking by while we moved. The sky was clear tonight, and the stars were shining really brightly. Bright enough so that even inside of a forest we didn't have to worry too much about the lack of light. Although, of course, it would be much better if we were doing this in the middle of the day.
And eventually, we reached not a cave or a structure of wood, but what used to be a fortress. An old castle that was broken and beaten down, but by our accounts, that's where the spiders were going towards. One thing that made me even more worried was the fact that even now, we were still inside the Witch's dungeon. I wasn't really sure how I felt about that, especially since the witch in question might be Riley, but at the same time it could be someone or something else. And if that was the case, then we would be in trouble the moment the witch decided to appear.
We started approaching that fortress and noticed how there was a very thin layer of mist at the edge of the forest just beyond it. Riley turned to look at it, but it was Michael who spoke up. "Is everything okay?"
Riley stared at it one more time and nodded. "Yeah. I'm sorry. I thought this was something else. Let's go."
I felt that Riley's reaction was a bit strange, but this wasn't the time to think about that kind of thing. We continued to move deeper towards the keep.
But strangely, the closer we got, the less it seemed like there were any signs of spiders. If anything, it almost felt like those things were nowhere near this structure. No spider webs, no cocoons, or anything that would signal the existence of spiders. The only thing that made us look and say 'oh, there are spiders here' were the tracks that we were still following. They were leading to one of the entrances in the area below, a part that seemed to be connected directly with the sewage system of the keep. Or maybe just the underground entrance.
We followed the tracks towards that opening, being very careful not to touch anything or make any sounds. The sound wet steps was the only thing that was going through the area. But we quickly started stepping more to the corner of the passage, covering our feet in mud, but at least keeping it less noisy as we moved. Not that it matter too much as we were forced to light a torch. The glow bouncing around the entire tunnel, showing that everything was covered in a thin layer of moisture.
The smell was the first thing that hit my nose. The smell of rot and decay, together with a scent of something that wasn't exactly herbs but something close to it. Incense, maybe? I clearly wasn't the only one who noticed that. Reaching to Riley, I touched their shoulder, sending a message through the System.
Cassandra: You probably can read what I'm saying unless you don't know how to read and you're hearing it.
Riley: I can read it. What is this?
Cassandra: It is another way to talk using the System. Basically, we're just sending messages through it. Anyway, do you have any idea what the smell is?
Riley glanced at me and shook their head. Although something in their eyes still felt a bit strange. Even if they were not hiding anything, they were not sharing everything either. Or at least that's what I felt.
We pressed on, following this tunnel until we reached a larger, open room. In there, there were two passages. One leading up towards the rest of the keep, which seemed to be completely void of any spider webs or something of the sort. The other was heading down towards a different path. However, there were signs and tracks of the monsters going in both directions, both towards the upper area of the keep and this cave below.
I glanced back, and everybody had the same confused expression, unsure what to do next. But remembering what Riley had mentioned earlier today, I decided to take charge.
"Let's go down. If there are cocoons, they're probably covered in spider webs. I don't think they would just leave them out in the open."
Heading down also sounded like the worst idea, which, generally speaking meant that it was the right way to go. After all, things were never easy.