The sound of aching metal echoed the room as the spider wrestled with the mechanical armor. Despite being a great opportunity to swarm the beast, its collection of sharp spines made it difficult to approach, and its hard carapace made it near impossible to penetrate with ranged attacks. Even so, several warriors started to join the battle be it to end it, or aid Natalia.

	The more the hell spawn fought against the pneumatic force of the machine’s arm, the more difficult it became for Natalia to maneuver it. When she attempted to strike the creature using her other arm, the spider crawled partially over and around the armor so it was positions behind it. Using its forward legs, the spider pushed against the machine, using its long arms to grip that of the powered armor to pull it against shoulder trying to bend it backwards. The arm held strong, but as the seconds went by it started to give. It wasn’t much, but sparks were flying.

	Before the spider could rip the arm off, if at all, Natalia was able to regain some of her strength, pulling it back into place. New sounds of solids striking metal rung from the armor. Spears made of ice began to strike the spider and armor. Most of them were able to hit the spider, few of them hit the creature’s torso, grazing the creature’s skin, leaving thin trails of blood. Only a couple were intercepted by the armor as they grappled, leaving no damage whatsoever. It wasn’t much of a distraction, but the extra damage loosened the spider’s grip on the armor’s arm. To better fight the armor, and to deflect the frozen assault, the spider positioned itself so that it had a weaker grip on the armor’s right arm, but in return used it as a shield against further icicle attacks.

	Now lower to the ground, the spider felt a new threat approaching. Several spines alone the creatures remaining legs and body stabbed at Ariamis as he charged forward, a new tool equipped upon his artificial arms. Even with the reach his arms provided, the distance between him and the space the creature’s leg once occupied was still too great to be completely safe from the creature’s spines. The creature ignored the dwarf more or less out of necessity to deal with the power armor and ice spears. That was a decision the spider soon regretted as when the blade pierced the soft spot left by the creature’s leg, it started to tense up. It lost all grip it had upon the armor freeing it from its clutches.

	No long wrestling again the surprising strength the creature had the armor lurched to the side. It was only a moment, but a moment was enough. The spider was not completely immobile, so it was able to kick away the dwarf with one of its needled legs slashing through some of the leathers he wore. It stopped the electrocution, but it was for naught. With a well-aimed hurl, Katelin had managed to strike the creature in its head, the female human head that grew from that of the spider’s. The screeching started to fade, and the body slumped forward, spear still imbedded through the creature’s eye. For a second, the spider moved mindlessly back and forth, its spines scratching anyone who was still near the body of the fiend at the time before it, too, fell onto the ground. Its legs creaked as they began to curl inward pushing the spider’s body to fall onto its side.

	There was a pause of silence now that the hissing and screeching had stopped. There was no scuttling of the massive creature shifting across the floor, nor that of metal clanging against metal. The monster had been defeated, while the spear in its head showed to be the killing blow, there was a large puddle of green blood at its base. Perhaps it had bled out and the spear finished it off. Regardless of what had done the most to dispatch the creature, it was dead. Some of those who were not part of the main attack cheered, relieved that the creature was now dead. However, before they could resume questioning where they were a new sound filled the chamber.

	The ground rumbled. Then it rumbled again. Soon the entire room began to shake violently. Cracks began to grow along the floor. Dust showered from the ceiling. From the center of the room, the earth beneath the champions began to dip. The room was collapsing, or at least the floor was. The floor gave way, and everyone started to fall towards new areas unknown. It was dark, making it hard to see just where they were falling towards. Within seconds of the floor disappearing, the champions’ fall was broken by a cool wave of water. There were several splashes of water as bits of ruble, rock, and the warriors hit the surface. The lifeless body of the spider also hit the water, creating a large wave. As it did so, wherever the spider touched the water, its body dissolved into nothingness. Some of the champion’s were able to swim to the surface, other could not. Regardless, a large piece of the floor that collapsed beneath them soon struck the water. The wave it created was enough to drive all of the champions towards the shore, safe from any possibility of drowning.

	Recovering from the fall they just took the warriors were able to look around at their new surroundings. The new chamber they were in was the exact same size as the one they were. The difference was the ceiling was now twice as high since the floor giving away made the two rooms one. The floors were still made up of uneven stone bricks, the walls were still separated by large columns jutting halfway out, and the walls in between the columns housed carved pictures of various battles of unknown origin. Looking back towards the body of water where they landed, they found that the farm end of the room looked to had collapsed, streams of water flowing from the rubble into the large lake where a huge chunk of the floor looked to have been dug out. The lake was deep, and took up a large portion of the room. The water was crystal clear, surprisingly so considering the amount of debris and dust that fell into it. Even from the blood of the spider and injured warriors, the water was free of any and all contaminates. The warriors themselves seemed to have been cleaned of any blood that had dried upon their persons leaving no trace of having ever bled, though their injuries remained. No evidence of the spider could be seen, either.

	At the edge of the lake there were several meters of shallow water with the deepest edge being only being about a meter tall before it dropped off suddenly towards the deep end. Within the shallow waters grew very strange trees, their roots embedded into the rock. The trees were not that tall, with low hanging fruits colored an appetizing pink shaped like pears. The trees gave off a sweet smell, and while no one had seen these specific plants before, there was no itch of danger coming off of them.

	At the far side of the room, opposite of the lake, the wall remained bare. There were no columns, uneven stones, or engravings of a battle. Polished, but not shiny the wall was smooth. At its center sat a double door, tall in that it almost reached the edge of where the floor from the previous room once was. The sheer size of the door was evidence enough that it was not designed for the hell spider to use. The door appeared to be made out of some strength synthetic material resembling metal, but was not. The final note was that there were two vertical pull bars, human height next to each other on either door. Outside of this door, there appeared to be no other way out of the room.

	At the moment, there appeared to be no threat, no reason to fight. Whether planned or not from the mysteries that brought them to this world in the first place this seemed like an opportunity to relax, recoup, and reevaluate their situation. No one knew what would come next if anything, so it was best to rest now before something new approached.