At least when I’d gotten a face full of spider from my ring I could try to tell myself it wasn’t real. It was an illusion brought about by clever workmanship, a projection no different from a dream.

  The dozens of legs scrambling for purchase on my face offered no such solace.

  Due to aforesaid distraction, it took me a moment to realize I was flat out on the ground. The centipede was heavy. Calling it giant gave the wrong impression, a centipede the length of my forearm would have been far too big. This centipede was monstrous it was larger than Attar. I was lucky it hadn’t broken my neck.

  Something sharper than the legs skidded across my arm but failed to penetrate.

  Poison.

  Didn’t centipedes have poison?

  “Get back! Ware! Foes!”

  My cry was slightly muffled by the mass of legs and chitin across my face, my altered voice made me sound like a panicked girl. Though to be fair to the time god, I probably would have sounded like a panicked girl even without her mark.

  I pulled both my sword and my fireball back towards me. My spellbook was missing. It had been knocked from my hand when I’d fallen.

  There was a sound like a plank of wood being torn in half, and then my blade skittered and tore free and suddenly a sickly, watery warmth spread rapidly outward from my groin.

  I’d just impaled myself from one leg to the other and had done a fair job of joining Conan and Stovepipe in the realm of politics.

  The centipede didn’t seem to be liking the flame, but neither was it taking its business elsewhere. Instead it contented itself with dancing about on my body with a hundred sharp claws, probably squeezing a few gallons of blood out of my pelvis is the process.

  I was growing faint.

  My spellbook was an extra arm’s length away. I could still make it out past the thrashing limbs and the growing darkness at the edges of my vision.

  Greater Heal

  That was over two months of healing in an hour. It wouldn’t close the wound any time soon, but it might be enough to clot it, replenish my blood, or at least keep me from immediately bleeding out. It was enough time bought to get me to my spellbook.

  Safe Teleport

  It turned out I healed while teleporting. That was good to know. I could create an invincible recuperation spell of some sort.

  Attar.

  Spells.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Right. I needed to focus. At least the centipede hadn’t noticed me yet.

  Why weren’t the ghosts fighting?

  My fingers were starting to numb from the loss of blood. I’d heard soldiers, lucky soldiers, could take weeks to recover from lost blood, months even. I could recover months in an hour, but I didn’t have an hour.

  The book slipped from my numb fingers. I couldn’t find the page.

  I couldn’t tell what was going on. Neither Attar nor the bug were reacting to my relocation, or, by the sounds, each other. Was Attar already dead? Did he and the centipede make friends?

  No.

  Wait.

  There was a sound.

  A bell. Tolling.

  Calling me to my death?

  I scrambled at my book again and again my fingers failed to find purchase.

  Lesser Heal VI

  Every little bit helped.

  Horrible rushing rustling filled the air.

  The centipede which had been crushing me scuttled back toward the wall. I could see Attar now, pale holding his bell like a ward before him. His eyes were out of focus, not looking at the centipede. What was—

  My own eyes followed his gaze.

  There was more centipedes. A lot more. Boiling down from the ceiling and walls towards me and Attar. Each as big as the one which had nearly killed me.

  (Let the record show it was the centipede who had killed me, not my own stupidity. Hopefully one of these new bugs would demonstrate they could actually pierce my skin so the whole thing didn’t look like a massive overreaction leading to a pointless death.)

  I sent my sword at the nearest, the one who had landed on me. I was clear now that it had scurried away, so the odds of stabbing myself had decreased.

  The second closest one I crushed.

  ?Push VIII?

  The centipede flattened as though it had been stepped on.

  Having my most powerful spells on my body was a life saver. If I some how survived this I was going to tattoo my regeneration spell onto my b—a memory of a wall of moving spikes, glistening back, forming images. That was what those had been for. We’d been in a tattoo parlour.

  A pair of ogres appeared between me and the onslaught of centipedes bringing me back to the present. A moment later a knight thundered towards the centipede I’d sent my sword after. The knight missed his charge, but the centipede twisted into my blade, which severed the rear quarter of its body away from the front.

  Neither section stopped moving.

  Disgusting.

  I fumbled for my spellbook but my fingers were too fat. I’d never thought of my fingers as fat before. Why was the floor so cold?

  Distantly, I could hear roaring. The ogres and the centipedes had engaged. Attar’s six mercenaries had surrounded the remains of the bisected centipede and were ineffectively stabbing at its writhing body.

  Wasn’t I supposed to be doing something?

  Spellbook?

  Oh.

  Yeah. That was it. My spellbook

  I focused carefully on my thumb and forefinger and sent them forward in a pincer to lift the cover from the book.

  Success. The book was grasped in both fingers now I just needed to...

  It was awfully dark here.

  There is no reason he should stab a creature that can't even pierce his skin while he has so many other spells. There is no reason doing so shouldn't kill it instantly. There is no reason it should hit him afterward, there is no reason the wound should be fatal, and there is no reason he shouldn't immediately be able to recover from the wounds.

  I actually had to change the rules a little because as written he accidentally decapitated himself first time round. I didn't change the rules to save Oswic, but because they didn't make sense for how he would attack a centipede on his body.

  1/6 he lost spellbook

  1/6 he panics and forgets spells carved into skin; yes

  4+ out of 6 his experience ignored above result: 1 no

  >: really? Really! REALLY?