Illusions & Cobwebs

Marcus awoke with a pained groan.

Every muscle in his body screamed, cold damp air clung to his skin, and it took all his strength just to push himself upright.

“Oww... pretty sure I dislocated something...”

It was pitch black. Only a faint shimmer of light trickled down from far above, from the place where he had plunged into the depths.

He tilted his head back, massaging the stiffness in his neck.

The hole overhead looked like a lone star at the end of an endless void, far too high to ever climb back to.

“Shit. No way I’m getting back up there...” His voice echoed hollowly against the stone.

He felt around for his hat, set it back on straight, then scrambled for his staff, half afraid the fall had snapped it in two. But there it was, lying a few feet away, completely unharmed.

“Phew... lucky break...”

In the darkness his fingers brushed across the gemstone at its tip.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a movie scene flickered: an old man with a hat, in the depths of a mine, conjuring light in the dark.

“How did that go again...?” he muttered.

He leaned in, breathed lightly against the gem, and sure enough, a faint glow stirred until warm amber light spilled across the stone around him.

Marcus squinted, then grinned wide.

“Ha! Sometimes it does pay to believe what you see in movies...”

Carefully he got to his feet and stepped into the dark, holding the staff out like a torch.

But after only a few paces, Marcus’ grin faded.

The gem’s dim glow revealed walls coated in thick gray-white veils.

Cobwebs, so heavy they didn’t just cling to the rock, but drooped from the ceiling like curtains.

Marcus froze, a shiver running down his spine.

“Oh no... oh please, not spiders. Anything but spiders...”

He eased the staff forward, brushed one strand aside, only for it to cling to his shoulder. He jerked, tore it off, but the sticky feeling clung to him.

And with each step it got worse: nets swaying overhead, threads dragging across his face, a faint, ceaseless rustle, like tiny legs moving in the shadows.

“Okay, Marcus... relax. Don’t panic. They’re just... cobwebs. Giant, sticky, disgusting cobwebs. That almost definitely belong to some monster hiding out here in the dark...”

His breath quickened, his gaze darting from shadow to shadow, half-expecting something to move at any second.

At last, the tunnel widened into a broad chamber.

Dark passages yawned in every direction, black mouths leading deeper underground.

Marcus swallowed hard.

Then, from one of the passages, something flickered. A faint bluish shimmer pulsed in the dark.

And out of that glow stepped a figure: slender, flawless, golden hair rippling as if in an invisible wind. Her violet eyes gleamed, and Marcus’ heart lurched.

It was the elven princess.

Almost as bare as when they first met, her body was draped only in strands of spider silk, clinging like translucent veils.

“At last... my savior...” she whispered, reaching her arms toward him. “Come... free me... and then my body shall be yours.”

Marcus gasped. “P-princess!? What the hell are you doing here?”

He crept forward, the staff trembling in his grip, but the glint in his eyes gave him away.

“Yes... closer, my hero...” Her voice was honey-sweet, and Marcus’ steps quickened.

Just a few more feet, and then...

“STOP! STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE, YOU IDIOT!”

The shout cracked through the cavern like thunder. Marcus spun, nearly dropping his staff.

Behind him dangled a figure, cocooned in webbing up to the neck.

A dwarf.

He had already chewed through several strands with his teeth, sticky fibers clinging to his lips and the long beard jutting out from the silk.

“Holy shit!” Marcus gasped. “Who the hell are you? I almost had a heart attack!”

The dwarf spat out a gob of silk and growled:

“Just so you know: I’ve been eating spiderwebs just to save your ass, lad!”

Marcus blinked, stunned.

“What?”

“That over there isn’t a princess, you fool! It’s bait, an illusion! The beast sits at the end of that passage, waiting to swallow you whole the moment you step closer!”

Marcus glanced from the dwarf to the princess, still beckoning sweetly, and his voice wavered as he rubbed at his stubbly chin:

“And how do I know you’re not an illusion too?”

The dwarf roared with laughter, so loud the webs above quivered.

“Ha! Because I know damn well you don’t notice a thing when there’s a naked woman waving at you! None of us would. Me included, that’s exactly how I ended up strung up here. But take a closer look, lad. Go on, look properly!”

Marcus turned back to the princess.

Only then did he catch the faint blue shimmer that wrapped around her, projected like a spotlight from deeper in the passage.

“Check the hands! The hands!” the dwarf barked.

Marcus squinted.

Four fingers. Crooked. Wrong.

A chill ran through him, but he muttered under his breath:

“Man… they never do get the hands right...”

Marcus’s eyes lingered on the warped fingers until the dwarf snarled again.

“Angler spider. Nasty breed. Spot the illusion and you’re still not safe...”

Marcus spun, heart hammering. “Why not!?”

The dwarf bellowed, spittle and strands of web flying from his beard:

“Because if you don’t take the bait... it comes hunting you instead! LOOK OUT, HERE IT COMES!”

At that instant the blue glow flickered.

The princess’s flawless body warped, her violet eyes melting into milky blobs, her smile twisting grotesquely. Then the image shattered like broken glass.

From the darkness beyond crawled the truth.

A bloated, jet-black body, bristling with coarse hairs. Eight legs scraped over the stone, each step clicking like bones breaking.

At the front, clusters of glowing orbs blinked, and beneath them hung dripping fangs, long and curved.

The creature shrieked, the sound splitting the cavern.

Marcus staggered back, staff trembling in his grip.

“Oh... fuck...”

The monster shifted sideways, legs rasping against the stone as it circled, slowly tightening its arc. It didn’t lunge, just circled slowly, glowing eyes fixed on him.

Marcus’s breath came fast and shallow.

He raised the staff, but his hands shook so hard the tip jittered in the air. 

No spell would come.

“Shit… shit… shit…”

The spider clicked its fangs, clack, clack, clack, then spat a silken line. It slapped against the stone barely a foot from Marcus’s boots, sticky droplets splattering across the floor.

“FUCK!” he yelped, stumbling back.

“Steady, lad!” the dwarf bellowed, still trussed in silk. “It wants you panicked. Bolt, and you’re done!”

The spider crept closer, its many eyes glowing like coals in the dark.

“Listen to me!” the dwarf roared, thrashing uselessly against the webs. “Forget the beast, free me! Any way you can! Get me loose and I’ll hack that bastard to pieces!”

Marcus’s gaze darted between the dwarf and the monster.

“How the hell am I supposed to...”

Then it struck him. Another cavern. Another monster. A tiny figure raising a vial of light against a spider in the dark.

May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out…

Marcus’s lips parted in sudden realization.

“That’s it...”

He clutched the staff with both hands, squared himself against the monster, and bellowed in the rhythm of some half-remembered chant:

“LANTERN BEFORE THE BREWERY; SHINE BRIGHT, AND LIGHT MY WAY... TO THE BAR!!!”

The gemstone blazed as if a keg of sunlight had been tapped all at once, and a golden beam burst forth, fizzing like freshly poured beer, flooding the cavern in a blinding glow.

The angler spider shrieked, recoiling. Its cluster of eyes spasmed in the light, fangs snapping as smoke curled from its bristling hide.

“Ha! It actually worked!” Marcus whooped.

He spun toward the dwarf and tore at the sticky silk, ripping strand after strand with frantic jerks. The cocoon clung stubbornly, gluey threads tightening around the dwarf’s chest.

“Faster, damn it!” the dwarf roared, writhing against the bindings. 

Behind them, the spider crashed blindly into the stone, each impact showering dust and shards from the ceiling.

Marcus yanked, cursed, tore again, until at last the webbing split with a sticky rip. 

The dwarf tumbled free, landing in a heap but already reaching for the massive axe half-buried in the threads.

He surged to his feet, voice booming like thunder.

“Now... it’s... demolition time!!”

With a roar he charged, the axe arcing in wide, savage swings. 

The spider lashed blindly, a fang snapping shut where the dwarf’s head had been an instant before. 

Steel met flesh, one hairy leg severed, then another and black, stinking ichor sprayed. 

Marcus gagged, covering his nose, as the dwarf hacked and hacked, berserk fury driving every blow.

At last the axe split the beast’s head with a crack that echoed through the cavern.

The spider convulsed once, twice, then slumped in a twitching heap.

Marcus’s jaw dropped.

“You… you actually killed it. Holy shit.”

The dwarf leaned on his axe, chest heaving, beard dripping with sweat and slime. 

He gave a weary nod.

“Gods… what I wouldn’t give for a beer right now…”

Marcus’s gaze drifted to the dented tankard dangling from the dwarf’s belt. 

Without a word, he plucked it free, held his staff over it—plop!—and the vessel brimmed with golden foam.

He pressed it into the dwarf’s hands.

He blinked. Looked at the beer. Looked at Marcus. Looked back at the beer. 

Then he raised it slowly, reverently, and took a long pull.

When he lowered it again, his eyes were shining.

“Ahhh! Lad… you’re my new best friend!”

Marcus snorted a laugh, rubbed his forehead. 

“You don’t happen to have a second mug, do you?”

The dwarf arched a brow, then broke into a grin. 

“As a matter of fact, I do! You never know what drinking buddy you’ll meet on the road.”

Marcus’s eyes lit up. “Now that’s my kind of dwarf!” He grabbed the second mug, filled it with another plop, then hesitated a beat, frowning. 

“Wait… you are a dwarf, right?”

He roared with laughter, thumping a fist to his chest. “Of course I am! Name is Bromor, of Ironmaw, home of the greatest dwarf-builders this age has ever known!”

Marcus grinned back, raised his mug, and clinked it against Bromor’s. 

“Then here’s to you, Bromor of Ironmaw! I, Marcus the Magus, am honored to drink with you!”

Foam sloshed over the rim as their laughter echoed through the cavern, while in the shadows, the spider’s last hiss faded into silence.