It's the strangest effect. Had he not been warned of it ahead of time, he'd have thought he was going mad or experiencing some bizarre battle fugue. Instead, he takes as much advantage as he can, charging to close the rest of the distance and squinting against the exploding pyrotechnics threatening to destroy any hope of night vision. With the spider moving so slowly, he can see every horrible detail, the hairs on the legs as thick as thorns, the slow, glistening drip of venom from a curled fang longer than his forearm extending from a massive, swollen palp. He stabs for that first. If this thing bites any of them, it will be like taking a poisoned sword through the body. They'll be dead before they hit the ground.
Other shapes surge around him, his comrades at arms and the remaining guardsmen. They're slashing, frenzied killing machines. Two of them extend their two handed swords overhead and run under the monster to slice open the hideously distended abdomen. Cullen has to look away, slash at the other palp.
And then reality snaps back into real-time focus. The spider is horribly wounded but still fighting. It thrashes and kicks. It drops down hard on one of the men still under it. When it lifts, he remains still, limbs at awkward angles.
Worse, there's a voice rising above all of the sounds of combat. It's a voice he recognizes. Uldred. But that can't be! Did you think you'd escaped? Delusional man. You're still here. You've always been here. You always will be. You're ours. Walls closing in, a shimmering wall of purple, it's all an overlay to the enormous round black eyes of the spider, two of them nothing more than charred holes now.
Cullen can hear the men and women around him crying out in distress, screaming. Something is terribly wrong. Terribly, and then it hits him. "Fear demon! Focus! It's a Void touched fear demon!" The prison recedes. There's still the spider, slower now and clumsy but still a threat. And somewhere behind that massive bulk lies something even worse.
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Other shapes surge around him, his comrades at arms and the remaining guardsmen. They're slashing, frenzied killing machines. Two of them extend their two handed swords overhead and run under the monster to slice open the hideously distended abdomen. Cullen has to look away, slash at the other palp.
And then reality snaps back into real-time focus. The spider is horribly wounded but still fighting. It thrashes and kicks. It drops down hard on one of the men still under it. When it lifts, he remains still, limbs at awkward angles.
Worse, there's a voice rising above all of the sounds of combat. It's a voice he recognizes. Uldred. But that can't be! Did you think you'd escaped? Delusional man. You're still here. You've always been here. You always will be. You're ours. Walls closing in, a shimmering wall of purple, it's all an overlay to the enormous round black eyes of the spider, two of them nothing more than charred holes now.
Cullen can hear the men and women around him crying out in distress, screaming. Something is terribly wrong. Terribly, and then it hits him. "Fear demon! Focus! It's a Void touched fear demon!" The prison recedes. There's still the spider, slower now and clumsy but still a threat. And somewhere behind that massive bulk lies something even worse.