Chapter 20: Chapter 20
Then he heard another rustle, closer this time. Okay, something is definitely sneaking up on me. He moved to stand up quietly, but found, to his surprise, that he couldn't. He appeared to be stuck to the tree.
"What the—oh, gross." What he'd thought was moss turned out to be webs. He struggled against it vainly, but it was useless—he was stuck.
"Protection from Evil, Mirror Image, Invisibility," Milo cast in quick succession. He vanished abruptly, but five identical illusory copies of himself remained. Classic shell con—none of the visible Milos were the real one. He hoped he wasn't jumping at shadows, because he'd just burned through most of his daily allotment of spells.
He was mildly satisfied when one of his illusory doubles was abruptly torn to pieces by a shadowy creature. The satisfaction vanished when he realized he was, illusions aside, stuck to a tree being attacked by a monster he couldn't see.
"Dancing Lights," he cast, sending four glowing red spheres into the sky above him. On the way up, they briefly illuminated, in red, horrible compound eyes and sharp pincers.
Great, he thought. Giant spiders. His invisibility spell would end as soon as he attacked one of them—that is, cast any spell that included them in the area. That ruled out Glitterdust and Grease, Milo's two favourite spells, but not creative use of Levitate. He could move himself or up to 400lbs of objects vertically, but not horizontally. Generally the spell was used by Wizards to escape, but Milo doubted it would pull him off of the webs.
"Levitate," he, and all of his doppelgangers, said. A hefty fallen log nearby Milo rose up slowly, ponderously, into the air a foot or two. Another mirror Milo fell to the spider's attack, and Milo started to sweat. Seeing yourself being eaten by a giant spider in dim red light while alone and trapped in a forest is, probably, one of the worst experiences a kid can go through (after visiting the dentist, of course). Milo then carefully reached into his Belt of Hidden Pouches with his right hand (his left was stuck in the webs) and withdrew an old adventurer's staple—fifty feet of silk rope and a grappling hook. The rope was invisible, but would cease to be as soon as it came to be more than ten feet from Milo—and the log was about twelve feet away. Hopefully the spider(s?) wouldn't notice two feet of taut rope appearing from nowhere. He awkwardly tossed the rope at the log—and missed. Milo saw another mirror Milo wink out of existence, presumably hit by the unseen attacker.
Milo looked at the fallen grappling hook, lying uselessly in the mud, and panicked slightly. Shouldn't help be coming? He thought. The glowing lights are up above me and everything. Wish I prepared Mage Hand this morning. His plan had been to lift the fallen tree up into the air, and use the grappling hook to pull it over to above the monstrous spider, then drop it. He doubted he'd have time to pull the hook back and throw it again. Well, nothing for it.
"No sense in us both dying, Mordy," he whispered to his familiar as he pulled him from his belt. "Run back to Hogwarts, see if Hermione or Hannah want you to be their familiar. Good luck, old friend."
Fear. Despair. Reluctance. He felt through their bond. Mordenkainen reluctantly crawled out of Milo's grasp, and turned around briefly. Love, he felt, before the magical creature skittered off.
"GLITTERDUST," Milo bellowed. The spider, now covered in glowing dust, was huge. The hairy creature's legs spanned at least fifteen feet across. The thing was blinded by the spell, but that would only last for twenty-four seconds. Also, his invisibility was gone, and he was still stuck. He decided to try burning the webs off of him with Prestidigitation—he might well get set on fire, but at least he'd be free.
"Prestidigitation," he said, and a small jet of fire sprung out of his hand at the tree… but nothing happened. Milo was confused, he was sure that would work. (Milo's only experience with webs came from the Web spell, which was used frequently by his arch-nemesis Thamior, and only bear passing resemblance to actual spider silk. Notably, the magical webs burn rapidly when exposed to fire—real spider silk, as Milo would know if he'd put any skill points into Knowledge (Nature), is fireproof).
Only eighteen seconds left. The spider flailed about awkwardly, catching one of Milo's duplicates with one of its eight hairy legs. The duplicate flickered and vanished. All Milo had left was Silent Image, Feather Fall, Grease, and some cantrips.
"Grease," he cast at the ground under the spider. The blind spider's eight legs flailed about, trying to get traction on the slippery ground, it's pincers creating an agitated clicking sound. It managed to keep its balance, however—Milo had forgotten that creatures with extra legs got a bonus to stability. He felt, after casting, that it might have been more effective to cast it on himself in case the spider tried to pick him up. Ah, well, twelve seconds to live. Milo frowned, thoughtfully. One effect of Grease was that anyone standing on the slippery surface had to make a Balance check to stay standing, and one effect of Balance was that anyone who took damage had to redo the check or fall. The amount of damage didn't make a difference.
Milo grinned.
"Acid Splash," he cast, and a pitifully small orb of acid hit the spider in what its face would be if it had one. Acid Splash was one of the most useless spells in existence—it hurt even less than just punching someone would, or even throwing a small rock—but Milo, as a Conjurer, got an extra Conjuration spell per level, and Acid Splash was the only 0th-level Conjuration spell in the multiverse. Milo had no choice but to prepare it every morning.
The spider fell to the ground, and Milo had six seconds before Glitterdust wore off and the spider could see. Milo gestured at the Levitated log, still floating a little above the ground, and it flew up into the canopy.
"Hey, ugly," Milo said, reaching into his belt. "Fear me, for I hold the mighty eldritch power of an eleven-foot pole!"
He gave the fallen spider a light push, and it slid (slightly downhill) along the Greased dirt, until it came to a stop in the slight depression where the log once was.
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