The air in the «Merry Troll» tavern was thick with the smell of cheap beer, sweat, and roasted pork. Valos stood on a table, which in itself was a sight — a baronet dressed in an expensive, albeit slightly worn, doublet in the middle of a stinking village inn.
«A great start for a grand undertaking. Father would be thrilled,» he thought with bitter irony, surveying the gathered crowd.
Before him stood about two dozen men. Mostly desperate paupers, a few former soldiers with scars instead of medals, and a couple of fellows whose faces screamed "escaped convict" louder than a town crier. Ideal material for cannon fodder. Or, in his case, for mithril mining.
— So, my suffering friends! Are you tired of chewing bark with salt instead of bread? Do you dream of getting rich, but all you have are debts and unpaid fines for drunken brawls? *A sigh.* I understand you. Life is shit. But sometimes, in that shit, you can find gold.
— I, Valos Tropan, heir to this beautiful, manure-scented corner of the empire, am offering you a chance. A chance to change your miserable fate. Right beneath us, in the old Naga dungeon, lies not just treasure. Mithril lies there.
An excited murmur went through the hall. Even the dullest among those present understood what mithril was. Worth its weight in gold. Actually, several times more.
— I won't lie to you, — Valos continued, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper. — It's dangerous there. It's dark. There... are probably giant spiders that would gladly wrap you in a cocoon and leave you for lunch for their offspring. But whoever comes with me and helps me obtain this shiny, beautiful metal... will get their share. Not promises. Not a pat on the shoulder. But real, clinking coins. Enough to buy yourself your own farm, or a tavern, or just to drink yourself blue for the next ten years. Those who doubt can stay behind. Wait for luck to come knocking on their door. And those who are ready to take a risk, meet at the old quarry at dawn.
Stepping down from the table to an approving (and greedy) rumble, Valos caught Corvus's gaze. He was standing in the corner, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.
— A brilliant speech, — Corvus commented dryly. — You almost convinced me you were leading them on a picnic, not to certain doom.
— Charming, Corvus, absolutely charming, — Valos snorted, ordering himself another cup of wine. — The people need motivation. Fear is a poor motivator. Greed is what moves the world. Trust me, I'm an expert on this.
***
The next morning, about fifteen men gathered at the old, abandoned quarry. Those who had enough courage (or desperation). Valos, having generously handed out an advance from the family treasury (which would have made his father clutch his heart), surveyed his «army» with undisguised skepticism.
«Great Powers, they'd lose a fight against a flock of enraged geese,» flashed through his mind.
Corvus, clad in practical leather armor, silently distributed weapons — mostly rusty halberds and makeshift bows.
— Remember: in the tunnels, you obey me and the baronet. A step left or right, and consider yourselves already dead. No heroics. Don't fall behind.
The entrance to the dungeon was a yawning black hole in the rock, framed by collapsed stones and overgrown with thorny bushes.
«Well then, here we go,» Valos sighed and stepped into the darkness first.
Inside was even worse than he had expected. The air was stale and cold. Torches cast flickering shadows on the walls, covered in slimy moss and bizarre reliefs reminiscent of serpent scales.
«At least it's been dead for a long time,» Valos tried to comfort himself as he made his way behind Corvus. «Just good old, well, not so good, ruins.»
His thoughts involuntarily turned to a passage from the light novel he had read in his original world. «The Chronicle of the Lost Scale.» The story of the Great Red Dragon Ignisar, who decided to destroy one of the first dungeons and was... swallowed by a giant maw that grew out of the earth itself. Dragons, the most powerful creatures, had since preferred to avoid these places. The thought was simultaneously comforting «there are no dragons here» and alarming «if even dragons are afraid, what are we doing here?»
— Stop! — Corvus's sharp command brought him back to reality.
The swordsman froze, pointing ahead. In the weak torchlight, they could see the floor dropping sharply ahead, descending into a black, invisible abyss. A wide chasm, hidden by shadows.
— A trap. Primitive, but effective. We go around the edge.
«Thank all the gods I brought him along,» Valos praised himself mentally. «On my own, I'd already be skewered on stalactites down below.»
The deeper they advanced, the more sinister the atmosphere became. The air began to vibrate with a quiet, continuous rustling. A rustling that came from everywhere.
And then *it* fell upon them from the shadows on the ceiling.
They were spiders. But not ordinary ones — they were the size of large dogs. Their abdomens, covered in stiff black hairs, merged with the darkness, and their multiple eyes reflected the torchlight as tiny red dots.
— Form a circle! — Corvus roared, and his sword whistled through the air, slicing the first creature in half with a sickening crunch.
Chaos ensued. The squad, which had been timidly huddling together a moment before, descended into wild panic. Shouts, screams, chaotic swings of weapons. One of the «volunteers,» a guy with the face of a battered dachshund, desperately flailed his halberd at anything that moved, nearly taking off his neighbor's head.
— Don't panic, damn it! — Valos shouted, leaping back from a pair of clawed legs. And he knew these creatures had a weakness. — The abdomen! Aim for the abdomen! And don't let them entangle you in webbing!
His voice, full of undisguised irritation, somehow worked. Several men, led by Corvus, who wielded his sword with ruthless efficiency, formed a semblance of a formation. They covered each other, hacking off legs and plunging their weapons into the soft abdomens of the arthropods.
The battle was short but fierce. When the last spider, its legs twitching convulsively, breathed its last on the damp stone, a heavy silence fell, broken only by the heavy breathing of the exhausted men.
— Everyone alive? — Valos asked, scanning the squad. To his surprise, no one had serious wounds. «Incredible. They survived.»
— Any wounded? — The men silently shook their heads, staring with superstitious fear at the scattered carcasses.
— Then we move on, — Valos wiped his forehead with his sleeve. — And remember, those were just spiders. Further on, I'm sure, something truly... interesting awaits us.