Rumble—
"The doors are open!"
"Block the entrance! Don't let too many of those beasts rush in at once!"
The fewer than three thousand Drow split into two groups. Most braced themselves against the heavy doors, preventing the spiders' charges from smashing the stone doors wide open.
The remaining elites, weapons in hand, gathered on either side. As spiders speckled with scarlet surged through the gaps along the doors and floor, they plunged their scimitars into the creatures' bodies.
The spiders' outer shells were tough, but the seasoned warriors who had distinguished themselves at the Spider Academy knew that the seams between sections of armor were relatively weak.
Outnumbered, the spiders that charged into the crowd were swiftly dismembered. Emerald blood soaked the floor in an instant, filling the warm air with a foul stench.
"Watch the ceiling!"
The barbs on the spiders' legs and bellies let them cling to the uneven stone walls, crawling overhead beyond the Drow's reach and weaving webs that would allow those behind them to penetrate deeper inside.
But just as they aimed their spinnerets into the darkness, Night Shadow gave her order:
"Light it!"
"[Magic Trick]." The surviving priests uttered the simplest of incantations, a spell every practitioner of the arcane arts had to learn.
Nearly a hundred blue and purple sparks erupted above the Temple's doors. Like dazzling, flickering fireworks, they ignited the fire beetle glands smeared over the stone beforehand—the unburned remnants collected from the Temple's oil lamps.
Tongues of fire climbed along the upper doorframe, surging like a wall of flame. Almost the instant the spiders touched it, they began hissing in agony. Their bodies burned, and their wails echoed through the Temple as they crashed into the swarm below.
The spiders' near-instinctive fear of fire forced those behind them to