Poko’s Rise To The Top

Chapter 8: An Eight Legged Monster

Poko followed the cave for about an hour before finding a separate path to the right, compared to the straight large corridor this path seemed small and dug out slowly.

‘Ugh finally! Guess I’ll try right then.’

About 20 steps in there is a small cavern, only this cavern is filled with some white stringy substance. Upon touching it Poko found it surprisingly sticky and tough.

He tries putting the torch up to it and it burns pretty well but with how much string there is, it would take 10x as long to walk through an area. Although that definitely is the way to do it if he wanted to go through here.

Poko slowly makes his way through the cavern, on the sides of the cavern are packed with little white balls. There are so many that they look like they are stuffed in with no extra room. These balls look fluffy and about the size of a human.

‘Hmmm what the heck are these? None of my knowledge skills are triggering on this. After the blue ball incident… fuck it if I burn it right away, nothing can come out and hurt me.’

Poko casts lesser fire on one and to his surprise the white string goes up quickly, lighting its neighbors on fire until every ball is on fire. This creates a lot of smoke and Poko backs off and ducks down to avoid it.

(COUGH) (COUGH)

(COUGH)

“My eyes! Agh my eyes burn! I can barely see anything.”

“SQWEEEEEK”

The cry of an angry mother resounds throughout the passageway. A giant white eight legged creature with fangs bursts through the other side of the cavern while the cavern is still on fire.

It quickly tries to grab the balls and put out the fire, but all that accomplishes is it’s legs getting burned.

As the smoke start to travel down the tunnel somewhere, the creature discovers Poko there and puts two and two together.

“SQRAAAAAAAAK”

Poko can feel it’s anger as he preps a  lesser fire.

‘Crap, I still only have 16 health.’

Unfortunately his eyes were still very blurry so it was hard to aim exactly where the creature was. Poko decides to hold the spell at his fingers, just before firing it, untill the creature got closer so he won’t miss.

As the creature charges over it spits out a stream of dark liquid towards Poko just as he casts lesser fire on it. With Poko’s blurry vision in the dark cave, he does not notice the thin liquid racing towards him.

Poko prepares to use quick steps to dodge if the spider survives his spell.

[Congratulations! You have defeated a third Floor Boss!]

Unfortunately as he looks at the notification, he is hit with a surprise spray of something wet, burning him instantly.

“Aaahhh it burns IT BURNS”

Poko starts rolling on the ground, grabbing for his health potion. The poison does 10 points of damage but is so painful Poko couldn’t even stand, much less use a spell. Luckily the creature died to his first spell.

‘It’s only 10 damage, if I can fight through it I won’t have to use my potion. Come on it’s just a little pain!’

3 more damage occurs and it’s enough for Poko to quickly drink the potion.

[Health potion consumed]

[Potion cooldown: 5 minutes]

[Restored 37 health]

[Cured poison]

‘Damn 3 hp that quickly! That was some potent poison. Well no more health potion but what’s the point in having it if I don’t use it, right??’

Immediately the pain starts to recede. And his health bar goes back up.

‘Damn the poison wasn’t even lesser. Whew I need more of those potions, I cannot afford to be as reckless as before.’

The creature’s body still sits there along with one skill book, one bronze, and some silky feeling pants.

[Would you like to learn silent steps]

“Yes!”

“Not sure how good these pants are but it has to be better than the starter pants, it came from a floor boss after all.”

Poko puts on his new pants and looks into the room where the creature came from.

A giant cavern with strings covering the walls and ceiling. Looking up Poko can’t tell how high it goes and amidst the webbing there are multiple string balls, only these look different. These have a different string wrapping them and some even have limbs similar to that creature, only smaller, sticking out.

As Poko looked around he heard echoes in the distance.

(Click clack)

(Click clack)

“SQWEEEK”

(CRUNCH)

‘Nope. This is definitely a Nope.’

Poko turned around and went back to the long corridor, continuing down that path.

An hour later and he stumbled upon another cavern also filled with that string, only there was a lot less and this string looked old and unkept, almost listless.

‘I don’t have enough torch stick left to make it back so I guess I’m going through here, hopefully I find the exit.’

Poko put his fire to it and surprisingly it lit up quick, the fire traveling across the cavern and setting a giant fire. Although it was clearing the path, it was also creating a lot of smoke in the passageway. Poko ducks before he is hit with the smoke.

“Haha this time I was ready!”

“SQWEEK”

Suddenly a cry comes from the cavern and after a few minutes, when the smoke starts to dissipate down the tunnel somewhere, Poko takes a peak inside the cavern.

The cavern is small and in the dim light Poko makes out a body to the right, upon closer inspection he finds a black eight legged creature with fangs curled up in a ball. The front two legs are different, looking almost like blades.

Next to the creature is 25 copper and a small bottle, much smaller than the potions.

‘Creepy! But surprisingly the easiest to kill so far, I’ll take it!’

Poko puts away his loot and continues down the corridor. The long corridor continues into a giant cavern. Directly across from him it looked like the large corridor continued, around the cavern was 4 more different openings.

(BRRG)

Poko hears a noise like something rolling down a passage, it seems to come from the long corridor directly ahead. As it gets closer and closer Poko prepares his spell.

What emerges is a long worm the size of a bus with an opening at the front. Inside the opening is a circler row of teeth going all the way around it’s mouth.

‘Oh shit how am I supposed to deal with that!’

Poko quickly cast lesser fire on it as the worm notices him.