20. Cage

"Stop, Netherlue!" shouted one of the incubi.

"Feck," muttered Tash. She tested her strength against the strands of web and knew instant defeat. The pair stood helpless.

The spider dropped to the slick rock of the chamber floor. Séa and Tash gasped. It was not a spider. The eight knob-jointed legs and fat abdomen resembled a monstrous black widow spider. But a humanoid torso protruded from the arachnoid body. With black skin that matched its exoskeleton, the torso and head resembled that of a red-eyed elf. The purple light glinted from its muscular anatomy. Belts crossed its bare chest and held twin scimitars.

"A drider," Séa said. "I guess they're real, after all."

It sent a glare at the twin incubi. Its voice rumbled in a petulant basso, "Dickwads. Do, don't. Left, right. Up, down. Protect us from the incoming holy warriors, don't protect us. How about I eat you, next time?"

Fazzet slid a handsome eyebrow high. "We didn't know they'd been subverted by Sarophax's circlet." The near-twin incubi strolled closer, affecting a casual air.

Oxter raised his own sculpted eyebrow. "Yeah. Gosh, Netherlue."

The spiderlike monstrosity inspected the imprisoned duo: an intimidating, red-eyed, hungry appraisal. Netherlue the drider said, "So what do you two geniuses want now?"

Oxter raised his nose ceilingward. "Toss them in a cage and unbind them."

Fazzet also eyed the naked women. "I see blood. Sarophax has enjoyed them before us."

"We need a bed." Oxter's voice came strained and urgent. "Badly."

Netherlue hissed like a steam engine scaling a cobra. "You useless blobs of congealed bile! I'm hungry, and all you can think about is sex? I hate you so much."

Fazzet raised a finger and ticked it back and forth. "Now, now, my leggy friend. You know perfectly well who is whose boss."

"Get on with it." Oxter pointed to the cages.

Four cubes of welded iron bars lay not far from the glowing rune circle. One of them seemed occupied. A ragged dress lay in one corner, listlessly occupied by a forlorn woman. Her face turned away from the action as if she lay ill, injured, or uncaring. Matted gray and black hair topped a dirt-smeared face.

The drider thrust its front spider claws toward Séa's and Tash's feet. The pair twitched and grimaced, but only the sticky threads suffered injury. The strands shriveled and shrank away. The next instant, spider legs embraced the pair and lifted from the floor. Their faces mashed against the cold belly of the monster as the lumpy, bar-like legs crushed them from below.

Séa choked out, "Endurer, preserve us."

Fortunately, the journey lasted only seconds. The drider dumped them painfully onto a grid of iron bars. One of Tash's wine bottles, now glued to her hand, clanked against metal. Improbably, it stayed whole. "I will eat your flesh," the drider promised them with a puff of decay-scented breath. It scuttled in a semicircle to face the incubi. "And dinner had better be soon, you odiferous weeping boils."

Oxter jingled keys and swung the gate shut. His square-jawed smile artfully reassured. His disarmingly sincere voice soothed. "Worry not, ladies. Fazzet and I will solve a certain technical problem related to successful romance, and then we'll return. Our only goal is to delight your senses, soothe your troubled minds, and ignite your passions. Ignore this petulant spider." As his alluring musk tickled the women's nostrils he snicked the cage lock shut.

Séa inhaled. Tash whispered urgently in Séa's ear. "Shh!"

Galvanized by the rogue's urgency, the paladin managed to cool her planned string of defiant proclamations to a sort of wordless moan. "Yeaarrrmmmg!"

Fazzet grabbed Oxter's elbow and guided him away. His urgent words faded as their distance increased. "I'm as horny as a toad demon, but not so sex-mad that I can tolerate a stone bed. Let's send Netherlue for..."

The drider grimaced. He confided to the prisoners, "If I tried to eat them, I'd vomit. Nobody likes the taste of demon." On chitin-bladed feet, he clacked after the pair of incubi.

The half-elf whispered, "Well done, so far, Séa. We're caught, but the incubi think we're controlled by Sarophax."

Séa strained against her bonds, but although the sticky strands stretched, they didn't break. "We found the portal, too. The glowy runes on the floor."

"Yes, but what's with the huge worm? It's just lying there, undulating. It's either breathing or about to give birth."

"We're in his..." The paladin paused to choose a word. "... house. He carved it out. All the bones around are his table scraps. He's lived here a long time. The bones are old and dry."

Tash said, "See its chain? I see a glowing stone halfway up. The demons paralyzed it, or something."

The paladin said, "If he gets free of the magic, he'll be mad as mad can be."

Both incubi and the drider disappeared into the tunnel to the wine room. Except for the sleeping worm and one other, they were alone.

"Who are you?" said a weak, female voice.

Séa and Tash tried to twist their heads to view the listless woman in rags two cages down, with only partial success. Their bonds kept them stuck to each other and flat on the lumpy iron floor. Séa said, "Hullo! I'm Séa of Torugg. This is Tash of Giasleppi. Who are ... wait, you're Ophelle!"

The woman's voice had succumbed to despair. She sprawled against the grille work of the cage and barely lifted her head to reply. "Charmed, I'm sure," she said in tones tinged with the bleak irony only possible when death looms near.

"We've got to get her out of there," Séa said.

A mocking laugh burst from Ophelle's cracked lips. "You're drider food. You won't last a day. I wish we could trade places."

"What?" Séa said. "Why?"

"They're keeping me alive for my knowledge, but I wish they'd kill me. I want to be dead." She closed her eyes. "Gods, I want to be dead."

Pity wrung Séa's heart. Tash said, "Who is 'they?' How many demons?"

The woman's eyes stayed shut and her energy flagged. She mumbled, "About eight incubi are the core group. Some quasits and assorted freaks like the drider. The leader is Sarophax. She wears the circlet of subversion, and she's using it perfectly."

Tash drawled, "Not perfectly. We escaped."

Ophelle barked bitter laughter and fixed them with a contemptuous gaze. "You did not escape. Look at you."

The rogue pursed her lips. "You know, that's a good point."

"Pff," Séa said. "We may be down, but we're not out. Right, Tash?"

"Correct, and thank you for the reminder." With an emphatic wriggle, Tash flopped one of her wine bottles into the iron grid that composed the floor. Impelled by her wiry strength, it broke with a pop and a sad glug, glug, glug of escaping fluid. A moment later, the rogue attacked her spider silk bonds with broken glass.

"You're so devious," Séa gushed. "I love you."

"Yes, well," The rogue replied between grunts of effort, "I love you, too, but we still have to pretend to be totally helpless."

"Until we pounce."

"Took the words right from my mouth. Also, wow, these strands are tough. I'll hand this glass neck to you when I can, but time is running out." With a grunt and a snap of parting silk, she freed a forearm. "Watch the door, Séa."

"Don't give me hope," Ophelle moaned. "To have my hope crushed again would break me."

"Don't worry," Tash said as she crossed her arm over to attack the strands that glued she and Séa together. "We're completely fecked and will shortly die a horrific death after being raped by those snotty incubi. But Séa, here, is a paladin and therefore divorced from reality."

The paladin in question nodded fervently. "I'm really quite a case. Also, wow, that wine smells good. It reminds me how hungry I am." She blinked. "Tash, you're making progress! Stretch lower, if you can. My right hand's almost able to move."

"Argh, I'm cutting off my own circulation," Tash wheezed. "But ... a little more ... there!"

"You cut it!" Séa cooed.

They transferred the bottle neck to the paladin. With corded muscles she attacked everything she could reach. With each parted strand the job became easier. As she hacked at the webs imprisoning Tash's far arm, she lay half upon the rogue and she sought the half-elf's lips for a kiss.

Tash met her halfway, and their lips mingled for a brief, hungry, desperate smooch.

"Curse the gods," whispered Ophelle. "You've gone and done it."

"We ... kissed?" Tash said.

For the first time, a semblance of a normal voice animated the steward, weak though it was. "Yes, and in so doing, snapped me out it. You can do it, girls! Get free. Rescue me and we can flee the keep. I know the Circle's hidden exit— Oh, shit, here they come."

A/N: A drider is a popular monster original to the DnD game. The word is a contraction of "drow" (a cursed, subterranean, onyx-skinned elf variant) and "spider." In detail, I'm not "conforming to lore," but that's artistic license.

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ONC recommendation: Try this poly-romance by lemonhoax :

When florist Anya's plans of renting a building for her business are thwarted by successful confectioner, Kaynath, she recruits the help of her best friend, Mirza, to help her. She never expects to have a sweet tooth not just for one person, but maybe two people after all, if she can handle their secrets.