The road south ran through fields for a while, then the fields gave out into scrubland, then the scrubland gave out into nothing at all.
Gareth knew this stretch by feel, Deadwood Forest sat off to the west, close enough to shade part of the horizon. But their target today wasn't the forest. It was an old coal mine that had gone dry decades back, one of the reasons, according to Nicole, that a chunk of Northwind's mercenary work these days involved clearing out whatever moved in after the miners left.
"Two hours out at this pace," Nicole said, walking backward for a stretch so she could talk to them face-first. "We really need horses. First real payday, I'm putting in a vote."
"Vote noted," Gareth said.
Luna didn't say anything. She was walking close enough to him that their hands kept brushing, and neither of them had done anything about it, which Nicole had clocked about ten minutes ago and was choosing, loudly, not to mention.
Yesterday she took his hand like it personally offended her. Today they're strolling. Some people fall fast, Nicole thought, and decided her deputy title had better come with hazard pay.
The mine entrance turned out to be smaller than she'd built it up to be in her head, barely wide enough for two people abreast, a black gap in a hillside overgrown with weeds. A smell came off it, wet stone and mildew, and under that, something animal.
"Lovely," Nicole muttered, pulling two fluorite torches from her pack and handing one over to Luna. Both crystals caught light the moment Aura and Mana touched them, throwing a wide cone of pale glow into the dark.
"I'll go first," Gareth said, drawing his sword. "Keep the light steady, that's the job."
Luna fell in behind him, staff ready, a thread of fire already coiled at its tip. Nicole took the rear, and if her palms were sweating a little, she wasn't going to say so out loud.
The inside opened up more than the entrance suggested, old support beams still standing in places, pick marks scarring the walls where miners had chased a vein that had clearly run out on them. Water dripped somewhere ahead in a slow, patient rhythm.
They'd gone maybe a hundred paces when Gareth stopped, hand up.
"There," he said quietly.
Ahead, where the passage widened into what had probably been a working face, pale shapes clung to the rock, still as stone.
Cave Spiders. Gareth had heard enough about them from Guild gossip to know the basics: nearly blind, but their legs read vibration like a second set of ears, which meant the trick wasn't stealth so much as speed.
He didn't bother with stealth.
The first spider barely got its legs under it before his sword was already through its head. The second and third came at him together, and he dealt with them the way he'd dealt with the wolves, not elegantly, just faster than they could react to. Two more strokes, two more bodies hitting the stone floor.
"Okay," Nicole said from the back, sounding faintly stunned despite having watched this exact thing happen with the wolves two days ago. "Okay, I keep forgetting."
Luna hadn't even raised her staff. "At this pace we'll clear the whole nest before lunch."
"That a complaint?"
"An observation."
They pushed deeper, and the pattern held, clusters of Tier-1 spiders scattered through the old mining faces, none of them lasting past a single exchange. Gareth started to wonder if the quest reward was overpriced for the actual difficulty, until they reached the bottom level and found the two guarding it.
These weren't the same as the others. Bigger, a full head taller at the shoulder, legs spanning wider than a grown man's reach, backs armored in a thick gray shell that looked like it would turn a lesser blade. Their eyes glowed a dull red in the torchlight, fixed and patient, watching him the way the others hadn't.
"Tier-2," Luna said, already stepping up beside him, staff angled. "I'll take the one on the right."
"Copy that."
"Nicole, watch the tunnel behind us. If something else wandered down here while we were making noise, I don't want it finding us mid-fight."
"On it." Nicole planted herself at the choke point, short sword out, doing her best impression of someone who wasn't nervous.
Gareth moved first. The spider on the left met him with a speed that caught him slightly off guard, its legs driving it sideways as he swung, forcing him to check his stroke or overcommit into open air. He recovered fast, drove Aura into his off hand, and put a fist through the front of its skull hard enough to crack the shell there.
It didn't die. It got angrier.
Behind him, Luna's Wind Blade sequence cracked through the air in three quick pulses, aimed low, catching the other spider's underside where the plating gave out. It folded almost instantly, legs curling in on themselves.
"Nice shot," Gareth called, already circling the wounded one in front of him, looking for the same soft angle.
The last spider seemed to understand, belatedly, that it was alone now. It broke for the tunnel mouth behind it, and Gareth cut the retreat off before it covered five feet, sword driving down through its back and out the other side.
Silence settled over the chamber, broken only by dripping water and Nicole exhaling somewhere behind them like she'd been holding her breath the whole fight.
"That's the nest," Gareth said, wiping his blade clean on what was left of the last spider. "Anyone see more further in?"
"Don't think so." Luna crouched by the corpse of hers, inspecting the wound with something like professional curiosity. "Weak for a Tier-2. Wind Wolves hit harder than this."
"Cave Spiders have a reputation for being the joke of their family," Nicole offered, finally rejoining them now that the fighting was over. "Guess now I know why."
Gareth started collecting fangs while the other two worked the rest of the kills, the mine's stagnant air a little less oppressive now that the quiet wasn't full of watching eyes. Three days for this job, and they'd need maybe one, most of which had already been spent walking here.
"Not bad for our first job together," he said, tossing a handful of fangs into his pack.
"Speak for yourself," Nicole grumbled, still catching her breath. "Some of us actually broke a sweat."
Luna said nothing, but there was the faintest curve at the corner of her mouth as she watched the two of them bicker, and for a moment the mine didn't feel so much like a job site as it did the beginning of something that might actually hold together.