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"You sure we're ready for this?"

Cass turned to her partner as she asked that question, the kobold gripping a sword in one hand as the two of them stood at the mouth of a deep, cavernous dungeon. She and Saffron, her dragon partner, had been training and grinding to enter this dungeon for the past week or so, but now that they were actually standing before this dangerous cavern...well, the kobold was getting a little bit of a cold feet! Saffron had already run past Cass, knives in hand; it took Cass raising her voice three times before she came to a skidding halt just outside of the cave's entrance!

"Uh, yeah, of course! This is all that we've been grinding for since, like, Tuesday. Cass. Come on, there's so much stuff in here just waiting to be looted..." Saffron said, practically bouncing and skipping in place from all the built up energy and excitement she had bubbling inside of her! Unlike Cass, the dragon had absolutely no fear or worry about what could be lying in wait deep inside of this cavern...she very much had dollar signs in her eyes! "If you don't come along, i'm not going to split it with youuuu~" Saffron teased, ushering the kobold over to the entrance of the cave, an invitation that Cass eventually - and hesitantly - ended up accepting. "Ugh...all right, I guess you're right. No use in arguing about it now...but you better be the one out front, okay?" Cass said as she stepped to Saffron's side, the two adventurers descending down a mossy, overgrown staircase into the dungeon...

Saffron clenched one of her hands into a fist in the darkness, squeezing for a few moments before she released all the pressure and a small flame lit in her hands, illuminating at least some of the world around the dragon as Cass and she continued to tread carefully down these rickety, slippery steps. The small fire Saffron had lit at least illuminated the area from wall to wall, though the both of them still had to strain and focus to notice anything farther away than that. Though, both of them reached the bottom of the staircase without incident, Saffron almost stumbling to the ground as she took a step where she expected there to be another drop, but actually only found the cold floor of the dungeon! True to fashion, though, as soon as Saffron recovered, she immediately started making her way down the hallway that lay in front of them, causing Cass to have a little panic attack as she tried to keep up with her friend!

"Saffron, slow down! There might be booby traps or something!!" Cass shouted as she attempted to quell Saffron's excitement, the dragon stopping for a moment to actually catch her breath and allow Cass to catch up before she started to make her way through the dungeon, this time with her kobold at least somewhat by her side. Even though she so badly wanted to just run ahead, metaphorical guns-blazing, the dragon also realized that she, at the very least, could not take down this dungeon without Cass! At least, not yet. She'd have to get a little bit more experience before she could do that.

"Eugh, there's cobwebs absolutely *everywhere*..." Cass complained as she stayed close to Saffron's side, her point being made almost immediately when Saffron walked right through a spider web a few seconds later! "Yeah, that means nobody's been here in years! And that means there's probably more loot for us to grab!" Saffron responded.

"Oooor...that this is a spider dungeon, and we should probably be careful lest we end up in a web bigger than our bodies." the kobold replied, trying her best to keep Saffron on Earth right now.

"And you don't want to be that close to me, right?~"

The two dungeon crawlers were constantly on their toes as they turned around corner after corner, checked every nook and cranny they could for some kind of treasure. But, so far, for how isolated and hard to get to this place was...it was actually pretty boring. Cass was actually starting to think that Saffron might be right, and that this place was completely abandoned! When that thought crossed her head, the kobold subconsciously let her guard down a little bit, even though she was still consciously walking on her tiptoes and listening for the faintest sound.

Perhaps that's how they ended up getting jumped by the giant spider.

Well, perhaps "giant" was a misnomer. It was certainly bigger than the average spider, but it still barely came up to Saffron's ankles...though she only knew that after she heard a scream from Cass, turning around to see the giant thing had knocked her cold right to the floor! "Oh, geez. Cass! Get up! We've got some company to handle!..." Saffron said, dragging the stunned kobold behind her before getting into a fighting stance. It seemed like there was only one of these spiders at the time, thankfully, but she just hoped that Cass would get up and start watching her back as she took this one down. The dragon deftly took a few knives out of the bandolier she wore around her waist, flicking them at the giant arachnid like they were little more than scraps of paper! The skittish spider had started to lunge towards Saffron already, but more than one of those knives managed to land and stop the spider in its tracks...though, it didn't go down without making a frankly-unsettling shrieking noise as it did so!

Saffron got her bearings back a few seconds later, turning to see if her kobold had gotten back to her feet in the time it took Saffron to kill that spider. The dragon's eyes strained to make out anything in the darkness behind her, even as she increased the intensity of her flame for a moment to lighten things up. But, soon, a revelation came; the ground behind her was completely empty. Any trace of Cass had seemingly completely vanished...

"Cass? CASS?"

Saffron's voice echoed down the empty hallways of the dungeon, seemingly answering itself with more and more desperation. This wasn't good, this wasn't good at all! They hadn't explored more than a few tunnels in this dungeon, and already Cass had gotten lost...the small kobold could hold her own for a little bit, usually, but if she had been the victim of a sneak attack it might already...no, she couldn't think of it in absolutes like that. She needed to get her butt into gear and start exploring the rest of the dungeon to find Cass!

The hallway they had been traveling down quickly turned out to be a dead end, so Saffron turned her way around, poking her head into every corner and side path she could find...there were a few spiders she found crawling around, but all of them were even smaller than the one she had already fought earlier and they were trivial to dispatch. And, ugh, the loot in this place didn't even seem to be that good! If she was going to lose her kobold so easily like this, the very least she could have gotten in return was some nice weapons and gear...

Gah, that was such a materialistic way of thinking about things, though. She wouldn't have anyone to SHARE the loot with if Cass didn't come back with her! So the dragon trudged forward, continuing to clear out hallways full of spiders and cobwebs and the like and nearly always finding a disappointingly lackluster chest at the end of it all. This place was just full to the brim with the lowest level of mobs one could imagine and the lack of challenge was honestly starting to get on Saffron's nerves. There had to be something more powerful and more dangerous deeper inside of the dungeon, though...what else could have just kidnapped Cass so easily like that?

Saffron honestly didn't want to think about it all too much.

The journey continued deeper into the dungeon, Saffron having to expend more of her heat-generating powers just to be able to see what was going on ahead of her as she descended staircase after staircase. These cobwebs were getting so sticky and thick, and still there was no sign of Cass to be found. Not even a dropped weapon or anything like that! It was as if the kobold had completely disappeared, and a little bit of true worry was starting to set in for Saffron...

But, that worry was wiped away when the dragon finally came upon something that most certainly stood out amongst the nondescript hallways of the dungeon. A grand, yet decrepit archway, the entrance to which was absolutely smothered in thick webbing. But it was different! It was different from anything else she had seen, and it looked quite important, as well. If there was a place for Cass to have ended up, it would definitely be here...the only question for Saffron now was, how would she get in? And, what would lie beyond that tangled mess of webbing?

Saffron started out simple, attempting to just tear her way through the mass of webs with a few of her daggers...but, in just a few moments, the dragon quickly realized how bad of an idea that was when the webbing just got all gummed up in her blades! Afterwards, she decided that the flame in her hand could help out; positioning her hand in front of her, the dragon gently blew on the flame, her eyes glimmering as she saw a bit of the web catch fire; a fire that almost instantly spread down the rest of the webbing, burning more than enough of a hole for the dragon to walk right through! It honestly worked even better than she had expected, but there wasn't time to think about that. The dragon stood at the mouth of the cavern, half expecting a flood of spiders to come gushing out in the most traumatizing and terrible fashion possible...

But nothing happened. Once the fire burned through all of its fuel, it was quiet. Deathly quiet. The absence of anything happening almost unnerved Saffron more than if a wave of spiders immediately started attacking her! Lighting her flame in hand once more, Saffron started to gently tiptoe through the open entrance, keeping her wits held as close to her body as she could, constantly checking around every corner and crevice she could to make absolutely certain that she wasn't about to be jumped by something...

But, only a minute or so later, the dragon bumped against the back wall of this room. Seemed like, for the grand archway that was its entrance, this place was actually rather small...and, it seemed as though it was just as empty as every other room in this place! A bout of frustration started to well up inside of Saffron, the dragon eventually whipping her hand around in a circle to try and illuminate the rest of the room as best she could! "Aagh, where the hell IS SHE-"

And then she saw something.

There were plenty of webs that hadn't been burned off covering the other walls of this chamber, but there was a giant bunch of webbing collected on the wall in front of her...and, the dragon could just barely make out something sticking out of the top of it. "C...Cass?" Saffron asked herself, very hesitantly reaching forward with a finger and getting quite close before recoiling back in horror as the mass in front of her started to wriggle and writhe! "Holy FUCK, what did they DO to you!?" Saffron screamed as she jumped back, looking down to see the kobold's sword on the floor beneath her, only confirming her suspicion that it was, in fact, Cass bundled up in that mass of string and webbing!

The kobold's tiny head was poking out of the top of this makeshift cocoon, but it was really only her horns that Saffron could actually see. It was clear she was still...alive...in there, at the very least, so Saffron pulled out a few of her knives, getting ready to cut Cass right on down. She didn't know where Cass began and the cocoon ended, so she needed to take her time and be careful in order not to injure her friend.

Too bad she wouldn't be afforded that time.

Just as Saffron was beginning the process of cutting down her kobold friend, she heard something skittering in the darkness behind her...well, the dragon knew it wouldn't be this easy. She quickly readied a flame in her hand before whirling around and haphazardly blowing it into the void behind her, intending to cause as much collateral damage as possible! The dragon jumped back a few inches as what was hiding in the darkness became illuminated from her ball of flame...and, well, it looked like she had awoken the big spider mama, to be sure! This thing was BIG, and it was loud, and it was angry. There were plenty of babies skittering along the floor beside her at first, but the flames that Saffron had blown their way had managed to dispatch quite a few of them. That obviously wasn't the thing that Saffron was most focused on, though! This queen spider was huge, easily as tall as the dragon with a lot more weight to throw around. Maybe the two of them could take it on together, but with one of their party incapacitated right now...well, it would be a tall ask, at the very least!

Saffron would have to use some things she had been keeping up her sleeves to incapacitate the spider long enough for her to make a break for it. She pulled a few knives out of her bandolier, holding the tips between her fingers and starting to warm up the metal they were composed of...in just a few moments, the knives started to glow a bright white, showing just how hot they were quickly becoming! She had to dodge a few shots of webbing while she did this, but when she let those knives loose...god, the screech that the creature let out completely rattled her to the core, it was the stuff of nightmares...and that nightmare was a giant spider rushing towards her, completely blinded by rage and searing pain!

Saffron's entire life flashed before her eyes for a few moments. It was as if there was so much adrenaline pumping through her body, that it wrapped around to the other end and left her completely immobilized in fear. But, the dragon did end up lunging to the floor, rolling away and wincing as she heard a sickening *crrrnch!* from the queen beast slamming right into the wall she was standing in front of. At first, Saffron's heart skipped a beat as she thought the spider might have slammed directly into the vulnerable kobold pinned on the wall, but as she turned around she realized that the spider had missed her by nary a few inches! The impact left the spider more than dazed, and seeing this opportunity, the dragon jumped back into action. She quickly scrambled over to Cass, using another knife to slice the cocoon right open and snag Cass out of her gooey confines in a matter of seconds! Holding the kobold under her arm like a football, Saffron sprinted her way around the stunned spider and out the entrance way. Freedom was just a few staircases away for the two of them...

But then, something caught Saffron a bit off guard. She had expected a little bit of fight from somebody in this dungeon, but she didn't expect that someone to be the kobold under her arms! Cass was struggling and kicking, not against her confines, but against Saffron herself! She seemed to be mumbling something completely incoherent as well, making the dragon even more confused as she tried her best to find a safe corner to sort all of this out in. "Cass, what the he-" she said as she took her friend out from under her arm and got a good look on the struggling, feisty lizard...

Something caught Saffron's attention immediately. Swirls in Cass's eyes, ones that certainly indicated that she had been hypnotized! And, fuck, Saffron couldn't even look at them herself for too long without starting to feel a bit weird...presumably, she had gotten bit by one of the spiders and got a good dose of their venom, though Saffron wasn't particularly keen on trying to find the bite marks in the must be darkness of the dungeon...so it looks like Saffron was just going to have to deal with a snarling, struggling kobold for the duration of their escape. The venom of these creatures hypnotized any who were bitten into thinking they were one of those beasts, and to fight tooth and nail to not be removed from the dungeon. Good thing kobolds had tiny teeth and nails.

"You are gonna owe me dinner after this..." Saffron grumbled to herself as she placed Cass under her arm once more, trying her best to listen for any skittering on the floors around her before pulling out of the corner and making a beeline for the exit! Her heart pounded as she made her way around every corner, expecting an army of spiders to stop her just inches away from the exit. She blew waves of fire behind her every now and again, just to make sure there was nothing chasing them...and it seemed to work. The light at the end of the tunnel was right there in front of her, and even though Cass was absolutely not helping in any way, it seemed she had managed to make her daring escape!

Saffron's eyes almost immediately squinted to the point of blindness as they tried to adjust to the bright light of the outside world. The dragon kept running for a few moments, just far away enough that she could reasonably consider the two of them safe as she collapsed into the cool grass, sweaty and huffing and panting and, for once, satisfied with her dungeon experience...even though she had ended up with barely any loot!