Chapter 27

Fortunately, the next day was Saturday, so Milo didn't have to worry about using his spells to bluff his way through classes. Instead, he prepared the same combat spells he did on the first trip into the forest, and set out. This time, there would be nobody to rescue him — so he went in the middle of the day, protected by his invisible Mage Armour.

"Locate Object: acromantula's corpse," he cast, swapping out Mirror Image. As far as the magic was concerned, a dead creature was an object (unless it was undead, of course).

"You know," he muttered to himself as he followed the path set out by the spell. "I think I've realized why I'm having so much trouble here. I was really designed to neutralize a horde of enemies so that Zook and the others can take them out with pointy sticks and things," he said. "My spell selection was never designed to win fights solo." Now that he thought about it, Milo realized he didn't have anything actually, you know, lethal. Just sort of annoying. "The other thing about this crazy world," he complained. "There's no Wizards. I mean, there's these people here who call themselves wizards, but they're really more like Warlocks gone wrong. But no proper Wizards." No Wizards meant he couldn't copy spells for any amount of money, which is why his selection was still so limited. Every level, all Wizards learned a mere two new spells from independent research.

"It's all so unfair," he muttered. "I have to re-invent the wheel every time I want to learn a new spell. Ah, here we are."

He turned a somewhat familiar corner and felt the angle of Locate Object change suddenly, meaning he was close. It all looked so different during the day, but there was the web-covered tree. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed it during the night, there really was a lot of web everywhere.

He cautiously approached the remains of the monstrous spider. Were Milo a normal human, he would be repulsed by the smell — but, Milo's nose, like those of everyone from his world, only picks up on plot-sensitive scents. The rest are just assumed to be there, but not explicitly mentioned.

If Milo had thought that the acromantula would look less frightening during the light, he would have been wrong. It was enormous. His estimate of fifteen feet across was wrong — it was closer to twenty-five. Milo shuddered.

"A-ha!" he exclaimed. "That thing is way too large to have been killed by that little log I dropped," he said. The log weighed at most 400lbs, because that was as much as Levitate could carry, and only dropped twenty feet (the furthest he could raise it in the one round he had to do so) meaning it only did 2d6 damage. That's twelve, max, and if acromantulas (acromantulae?) are anything like the monstrous spiders back home then it should have had twenty-four hit points, minimum, but probably closer to fifty-two. "It should have shrugged that off and bitten me in half."

Milo frowned. There was more, too. Even if the spider was only CR 2, he should have had somewhere in the vicinity of 22 hp – and Milo only did, maximum, 12 damage. Actually, he added mentally, 15 with Acid Splash. But the odds of that happening are slim – only one in 108. He shouldn't have been able to even kill a CR 1 monstrous spider with all he did. And from what the people around here had been saying, acromantulas were dangerous. Really dangerous. From that alone, he would have thought that they were Challenge Rating four or more.

He moved closer to the body to investigate. It was, clearly, quite dead.

"So what happened to you, big guy? Were you already wounded? Expose the Dead," he cast, switching out Levitate. This was a spell the good people of Eberron had developed, but it had been carried to Milo's world by powerful spellcasters using Planeshift. He'd never actually seen it done before, and had no idea how to cast it, but Spontaneous Divination let him do it anyways. Best ability ever. Anyways — the spell gave him a gigantic bonus to searching crime scenes, and let him discover clues as if he were a trained professional. Some quick math told him that he'd have to be able to beat DC fifteen (easy, given his massive Intelligence and the bonus from the spell) to find a clue, if there was one, and then twenty-one to figure out any information from it. He frowned. It would take a twenty-six to find out everything he needed, and that was beyond him without more magical assistance.

"Master's Touch, Instant Search," he cast, this time in favour of Grease and Glitterdust, respectively. He was starting to worry that he would run out of spells before he was done. The spells together gave him another +6 to search.

Details of the spider's corpse, more than he really wanted to know in point of fact, suddenly appeared in his mind as if he'd diligently investigated the body.

Aside from a few long-since healed scars on its side and face, a sprained ankle (do spiders have ankles?), minor acid burning and 400lb of tree sitting on its back, the spider was in perfect health – except that it was missing one of its fangs.

"Well," Milo said triumphantly. "This explains everythi– wait a minute, no it doesn't. Can acromantulas shoot fangs? Why didn't I feel it? I know I didn't take any damage." Milo was aware, at any given time, how many hit points he had. "Well," he said. "You weren't a wounded high-CR monster, or I would have found the other injuries. You weren't CR 1, or I would have gotten less Experience Points. You weren't weak to acid, or there would be more serious burns. There is only one possible conclusion... and it changes everything," he said, pausing dramatically for the scene to change.

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