The Trail Boss

You’re walking in the forest. The sky above is overcast with dark, heavy clouds. You smell rain on the air. Surrounding you on all sides are trees that reach high enough to kiss the sky, as you walk along a dirt path through the mountains.

You’ve been very fortunate on your journey today, as you came across etchings on the quest postings board that warned of a fierce monster along today’s journey —

The Trail Boss.

Grateful for these warnings, you made sure to not skimp on your morning rations and made sure your weapons and potions were easily accessible in the off chance that you come across the beast before the map marker you took note of from the etchings — a gift from those who survived but did not prevail in their battles.

You’re a long way from town, and you must rely on your own wits, stamina, and skills to remain alive in this battle.

As your arrival to the map marker draws nearer, the sky begins to open up and droplets of rain coat your skin in thicker and thicker layers. You must be close.

You’ve been traveling with another, a ranger, who has scouted ahead to assess the danger that lies in wait for you. Worry has taken root in your mind as you hope you are not too late, that he hasn’t had to take on the beast alone. That he hasn’t failed, as you’ve heard so many others have.

As you approach the danger zone, you breathe a sigh of relief seeing the ranger waiting for you at your meeting point. He is safe, and unharmed… meaning the being has not yet spawned at this point.

But as you arrive, the rain falls heavier and the skies grow darker. You barely have enough time to drop your rucksack and ready your weapons — a shortsword and many daggers hidden throughout your leathers — before he appears.

Dark clouds swirl around a clearing in the forest.

A clearing, you notice, that has been a place of battle many times before. Fresh corpses and ancient skeletal remains alike emphasize the great danger that forms before your very eyes.

And then, it takes shape —

Eight enormous legs rest on the ground only feet ahead of you — each one thrice your size. They trail back to a giant thorax, hairy with dangerous looking fibers, and you are confronted with a face you couldn’t even hope to imagine in your worst nightmares.

Infinite eyes stare at you atop a sinister pair of pincers, which click as the eldritch horror you’ve stumbled upon seems to stare into your soul. You resist turning back to your ranger to see his expression, knowing any falter in your attack could mean certain death. And death by spider is no kind way to perish.

Not sparing a moment, you leap into action.

Your daggers sheathed at your ribs and thighs, you hold your sword with both hands. You hum a tune and runes forged into the steel along the blade slowly come alight, dancing with the magic that has always been your saving grace.

You dart around the beast, slashing at its legs and thorax as you get underneath it — using your small size to your advantage. You get a few good nicks in, which you can tell from the dreadful screech coming from the enemy. But you make a fatal mistake pausing to wipe the sweat from your brow before the saltiness of it blinds you, and you’re instantly pinned by two of its appendages. You’re sure it’s over, that you’re done for, and you watch the pincers that will paralyze you with poison draw neared and nearer —

An arrow lands itself in an eye of the great beast, and you take the opportunity to roll out of range as you steal a glance back to your savior.

The ranger knocks back another arrow, eyes focused on his target. With adrenaline pumping through your veins, you lift a hand and channel your magic to the arrow to enchant it. It takes root in the giant spider’s thorax before great veins of sickly green poison begin to enrapture the thing. The poison spray takes hold, as do more ear-splitting screams of pain, but the spider does not back down.

Being a roguish bard yourself, you’re grateful for the assistance. Your strength is more in agility and stealth than force of strength, and you could use someone slinging arrows as you dart around. Haflings can only be so powerful in the face of such a great monstrosity. So you continue to use your powers, your hum turning into lyrical melody as you imbue your power into your friend in the hopes that it will keep him safe enough as you find a better angle to attack from… and then you see it.

The arrow lodged in its thorax is within reach if you can leap high enough.

You muster all the strength you have and jump as though your lives depend on it — because they do — and you manage to grab hold. But the beast is thrashing and bucking now, aware of your presence on its body. With a belt of a high note, you watch the sickly green veins of poison glow with greater and greater power as you engage in a battle of will with the spider. The ranger has your back, shooting arrow after arrow into various points of its legs and thorax. He lands one in another eye, giving you just enough of an edge to fully let loose your magic as your belting turns to a roar and thunder cracks above you. The veins reach a blinding level of power as they tear through the exoskeleton of the huge beast underfoot and you’re thrown off it to the ground, ricocheting off of a tree as you fly through the air.

The beast, it seems, has been defeated.

The ranger strides towards you, ready to assess your wounds and lift you to your feet, but something gives him pause. He’s looking past you, deeper into the woods. Without a second thought, you stand with wobbly legs and unsheath two daggers from your ribs. You turn in the direction he’s looking and run blindly towards whatever awaits you in the darkness ahead — your vision blurring at the edges.

You stop about fifty paces out, noticing the lack of footsteps following you, and turn back to him as he shouts to you:

“You narrowly avoided the real enemy!”

You follow his gaze, still trained on whatever had given him pause, to… nothingness?

Quickly, you cover yourself in shadow and sneak closer to him, desperately seeking whatever has him frozen in place. He lifts a hand, with great effort it seems, and points to something you hadn’t seen when you barreled ahead but that catches light from a bolt of lightning.

An intricately spun cobweb, right above where your Halfling height could reach as you had dashed.

Great, you think, another blasted spider.

A rustle in the leaves around you sends both you and the ranger’s heads looking in every direction as the lightning exposes thousands of tiny arachnids, all escaping from the darkness. But you turn back to the cobweb.

Searching for what the ranger had mentioned, scanning every line, you see it.

Wings the size of your thumb begin to glow with innate magical energy as the tiny fae turns to face you. Shit.

“You take the spiders, I’ll get the fairy,” you direct at your friend as you reach deep within. Your magic is running low, as is your energy. But you have some tricks up your sleeve — or, rather, in your pouch at your waist.

The fae doesn’t take kindly to the name you’ve called it, most don’t appreciate the infantilization, and raises a hand as a bolt of electricity hurls from the skies towards you. You manage to dodge it in the nick of time. You look past the fae to the ranger, who has sheathed his bow and has started tapping into his own magic — lighting up the brush with green flames as hundreds of tiny spiders perish before him. But they keep coming and coming in larger and larger waves.

You notice that the fairy is distracted. He’s summoning them. Disengaging from battle, you race back to your belongings and tear through your pack. It has to be here, it has to be here somewhere. Your hands finally grasp the rolled up parchment you’ve been searching for and you rush back to the ranger. You push your way into his mind while tossing a potion his way that will regenerate his magic well, “Buy me some time!” You knock back your own bottle of the same slick, dark liquid.

He sets more and more spiders alight as you carefully and stealthily line a circle of salt around the tiny fae below where it sits in its web. As it’s distracted by summoning more spiders you take your daggers and slash the web from its anchors, sending the fae directly where you needed it to be — in the center of your trap.

In horror, it realizes its predicament and begins to panic. It smashes its tiny fists against invisible walls as it tries desperately to escape the circle, but you’ve nearly won. You toss a dagger to the ranger and the two of you slice your palms open and create an outer ring around the salt circle with your blood as you unravel the scroll and begin to read.

This is old magic, written in an ancient tongue that you’ve been lucky enough to learn — though originally it was for singing the ballads of another time and another land. You parse your way through the spell carefully, making sure not to ruin it with a mispronunciation or incorrect inflection. Black smoke begins to rise in tendrils from the blood you’ve both spilled — a tribute to the entity you’re calling for help.

The fairy’s panic grows more desperate as he recognizes the language you sing, recognizes what is coming for him.

The tendrils turn into giant, razor-sharp, knife-like teeth. Rows and rows and rows of them begin to appear as the ground below the fae sinks into a throat. You hear the tiny screams and pleas of the small creature, but in an instant they are over as the mouth snaps shut and retreats to whatever hellish plane it came from. Only tendrils of smoke left in the space it took.

The rain stops. The skies clear. You both exhale and fall to the ground.

We’ve won.

You live to fight another day.