In Dungeon.

My body couldn't move. What was going on? Was I late for training? Was Rath punishing me somehow? I opened my eyes.

Oh, yes. Spiders.

I found myself in complete darkness. Or was my head still engulfed in thread? No, there was nothing that I could feel, and I could breathe. Somehow that was more ominous that waking up dead, so to speak. My body was tightly bound, hands strapped to my sides, and legs wrapped up too. I wasn't standing on anything either.

And… Yes. There was a noise nearby. Breathing! 

Let's see what's going on, I thought, and conjured a low level illumination spell.

The scene revealed wasn't very pretty. I was one of six small, tightly wrapped bodies hanging by threads from the ceiling of a plain room, constructed of stone blocks. Exactly the sort of room I had imaged would be in a dungeon. I wasn't as thrilled to see this as I had hoped.

Next to me I could see Gisel, facing the other direction. The other four must be the missing children. Two looked older than me, maybe early teenagers, whilst one was maybe ten, and the last one smaller than me even.

None of them were moving about, but whether that was because they were dead, unconscious, or simply just hanging there, I couldn't tell from here.

"Gisel," I hissed. "Are you awake?"

Gisel twitched at the sound of my voice. "Yes! Get me out of this!"

"Right."

"Hurry!"

"Okay, hang on." Haha. "Let me think about this." The threads were bound about us quite tightly. I didn't have enough confidence in my Wind Blade spell to slice the web without cutting skin too. Maybe a very small fireball? But that might set us on fire too. Water? Would just make us wet.

Oh! I had an idea.

"Get ready," I hissed to Gisel.

Steadying myself, I concentrated and cast a spark at her. As I suspected, the web was quite flammable. It went up quickly, making it look like Gisel was totally ablaze, so I quickly cast a waterball, which doused the flames just as the threads gave way, dumping Gisel into a messy puddle on the stone floor.

"Ow! What was that?" She staggered to her feet, tearing the disintegrating web off her. 

"Sorry, it seemed the fastest way to get you down. Do you have a knife? What am I saying, look who I'm talking to."

Shaking water off herself, Gisel stalked over to me and, swiftly and skilfully, cut my bindings. I fell to the ground with a thump. 

"Ouch." 

"Hey! Get me out too, please!"

"And me!" 

Two of our fellow captives, seeing we were loose, called out in low voices. One was one of the larger forms, a boy by the sound of it, whilst the other was the small one, a girl. The other two were ominously quiet though.

A minute later, the boy, a large plump lad, and a young girl, maybe only three years old, were standing on the ground. The girl was sniffling, tears in her eyes. 

"It's all right," I said, patting her head. "We're here to rescue you."

"I thought we were snatched by spiders," Gisel muttered, walking over to the fifth captive, and carefully slicing away.

"The results are the same," I retorted, moving over to her. The young girl held onto me, making movement slow. 

"This one is unconscious," Gisel said, as the child slipped free of the web, and slid to the floor, only half caught by her.

"They came and stabbed her with something," the tubby boy said, voice quavering. 

"Rath said they laid eggs in captives," I muttered. The young girl, hearing this, began to sob. "There there." I patted her head again. "She also said it wasn't too late to save them. What are your names?"

"I'm Toby," the boy said.

"I'm Emma," the young lass replied, sniffling.

"Do you know these two?" I indicated the two other victims.

"I think the one on the floor is Ralph, I've seen him in school," Toby said. "Don't know the other girl."

"Hello Toby and Emma," I said. "I'm Theo, that's Gisel."

By this time Gisel had cut free the last victim. A slim girl, as Toby had said, maybe twelve or thirteen years old. 

"We need to get out of here." I looked around. There was a doorway set in the middle of one wall, with a basic stone corridor running left to right beyond it, from what I could see. "Seems our choices are limited."

"What about these?" Gisel asked, indicating the unconscious children. 

"Toby, can you carry the girl? You look strong," I asked.

Toby nodded. "I can carry her on my shoulders. My dad showed me how."

"Gisel, do you think you can manage the boy?"

She nodded, and hauled him up, slinging the poor lad over one shoulder. "Easy."

I always forgot how strong she was.

"Right, follow me. Toby, you're in the middle. Gisel, rear guard."

"Okay," she said.

I approached the doorway and, very carefully, peered out. 

The corridor beyond was rough stone. Both ways disappeared into the gloom, but the floor to the left sloped very slightly upwards. Going on the basis we were underground, and out would be above us, I went left.

We crept along as quietly as possible, Emma trailed behind me, holding my hand. I had my light float above and behind me, for maximum visibility. 

After an uneventful few minutes, we came to another T-junction. Again, the left path sloped slightly uphill. I started to move, but Gisel hissed, and I stopped and looked back at her.

"I can hear something," she mouthed slowly to me, pointing left.

Nodding, I turned about and spoke to Emma and the others in a low, low voice. "I'll scout ahead. You wait here."

Patting Emma on the head, and leaving my light behind, I moved up the passage alone, into the gloom, all the while trying to think small thoughts. There was a slight bend to the corridor, and so my view was limited.

However, as I moved on I could hear low sounds. Small squeals and chirp-like noises. Spider noises.

Slowly a room came into view. I dropped to the floor, and crawled like a worm along in the corner of the passage until I had a decent view.

The room was pretty massive. It must have been a good fifty metres long, twenty wide and twenty tall. And it was full.

Slithering in reverse, I made my way back to my little party to report.

"Well?" asked Gisel, as Emma clutched my hand again.

"There is good news and bad news," I said. "There's a room ahead, really big. Part of the roof has collapsed, and I can see plants around the edges of the hole, and sunlight filtering in, so we're close. There's a door on the opposite side of the room, which is slightly ajar. I think that's where we need to go.

"So, what's the bad news?" Toby asked.

"The room is full of spiders. And when I mean full, I mean there are dozens and dozens of them, of all sizes. A couple of those green web-slinger ones too. I seriously doubt we'd be able to fight them all off."

"What do we do then Mister Theo?" asked Emma.

"I'm going to check out the right corridor. You guys wait here again. Won't be long."

"Don't go far!" Gisel admonished.

"I won't."

I slipped away once more, heading down the passage this time, into the gloom. It became very dark very quickly, so I risked summoning another light, making it as tiny as I could.

This direction didn't feel right to me. A cold, dank breeze sprang up from ahead, which didn't smell of freedom, but, somehow, deep, underground darkness. I shivered.

Barely a minute along, I could hear a low muttering, in what sounded like human tongue, but garbled, as if a baby were speaking. Assuming the baby had a deep, rough voice that is.

I crept on, and two features came into view. Ahead the corridor seemed to vanish into blackness. The mumbling I could hear seemed to be coming from a large doorway to the left, along with a foul odour.

Moving really, really carefully I left my light behind and edged my way along the left wall, towards the doorway. I made a mental note to try and find out if invisibility was a spell, and to learn it if so. 

Close now, I could see that the corridor just ahead vanished down a steep flight of dark, narrow stairs. The blackness that they led to wasn't at all inviting.

The doorway then. I slid to the ground and oh so slowly peered around, my head at floor level.

Beyond, dimly illuminated by some kind of fungi on the walls, was a large square, plain room, although it wasn't as large of the spider one. The place was littered with bones and rotting animal bits, including, I was slightly happy to see, spider parts. 

And sitting against the back wall, legs akimbo, chewing on some kind of dark meat – I didn't wish to speculate – was a grotesque figure.

In shape, at least, it was human-ish, like a hugely distorted, bloated, fat child. He was wearing a crude fur around his waist, but apart from that he was naked, with a swollen, dirty and hairy belly sagging low, onto enormous thighs. A vast waterfall of a beard covered his lower face and tumbled over his man-boobs, whilst a matching head of hair exploded from his head, dribbling over his shoulders like an extreme 'before' photo for shampoo. 

The giant had the expression of an idiot child, and appeared to be singing nonsense songs to himself. I estimated, standing, it would be at least four metres tall. 

Quivering with terror at this horrific monster, I slid back, carefully stood up and fled back to my companions.

"And?" Gisel was obviously getting impatient.

"It's even worse, I think," I said, and explained what I had seen.

"So we're trapped then?" Toby said, lower lip quivering.

"What do we do mister Theo?" Emma sobbed, holding onto me for dear life.

I looked at Gisel, who just shrugged. 

"Well," I said, after a minute or two thinking. "We can wait here and hope to be rescued, or I have an idea, but it's not without its risks."

"I don't see we have any real choice," Gisel said, once I had explained my plan. "Waiting is just as risky. Who knows when they will come and try to lay eggs in us. And we don't know how long these two have left." She nodded at the two unconscious children. "Besides, I want to do something."

I nodded. "I thought you would say something like that," I muttered. "Can't disagree though. Very well then, let's prepare."

Do or die time.