“Why me? Come on, now . . . This isn’t funny,” Gunter whined. “Why did you help us if you were just going to betray us? Was this all your scheme? This is sic—” His voice was cut off as the spider coated his face with webbing. The Dwarf’s entire body was wrapped little by little, and then he was slowly pulled across the floor toward the monster’s waiting mouth.

Bonnie turned away, most likely as she remembered what it was like to be in his position, but Lucas couldn’t. He had to watch this. After having watched Bonnie hack off Jason’s leg twice and having made it through those blood-curdling screams, he knew that he had the stomach for it. This was the role he had to play. He had to be the villain. I’m going to be seeing a lot more people die soon . . .

The crunching of Gunter’s bones and the odd gushing, smacking sound as Saba’a ripped his flesh apart and mashed it together in her maw set a grim backdrop to Lucas’s thoughts. He had often died in the past himself, but watching someone die right in front of him in such a gruesome manner was night-and-day different from anything that he had experienced or even witnessed via online video.

NPC Gunter has died within your party. He will not respawn. All quests related to Gunter will automatically fail. Those who knew that he went with you will now believe you are responsible for his death.

A new NPC has been created in Hesse.

The spider’s mandibles opened wide and folded out like small arms getting ready to hug someone. “The other one?” she hissed.

“Bonnie, cut off his head first,” Lucas instructed. The merc happily complied, bringing her saw up to the Dwarf’s throat. “Then feed her the rest of the body.”

“But the brains . . .” the spider complained, causing Bonnie to pause after barely breaking skin. “They’re some of the tastiest parts.”

“Fine. Scoop out his brains for our wannabe zombie-spider as well.”

Bonnie didn’t argue and went to work with a smile on her face. Jason, as broken as he was, just whimpered during the last few seconds he had the ability to do so until Bonnie slowly and deliberately sawed his head off from the throat to the spine. The twice removal of his leg had left him more of a husk than a person, and the final stretch didn’t reignite enough tortured life in him to even elicit a scream.

“So, what is the condition you need for that meal?” the spider asked while using two of her arms to clean the excess blood from the sides of her mouth.

“I’m going to need you to work with me to protect something. I plan on taking over this land, and once I have done that, I’ll need to make sure that others, people like me, can’t just waltz right through here,” Lucas explained. “I will, of course, help make sure that no one will be able to beat you as easily as we did. In exchange, I’ll need you to eat all the people who come through here.”