John was not sure if that's a good idea

John really wasn't sure if that was the best of ideas... because there were a lot of reasons that he would be in some serious danger after walking in there.

Firstly, that unknown individual: he or she had to be strong enough to overpower him and had to obviously know that he had these powers. Secondly, that person now had the power to modify this Barrier to her will (or at least as far as her powers would let her; though they were probably way beyond John's abilities since he or she could modify a lot more than he could...). And lastly, spiders were opponents that John could imagine being a big hassle since they could be rather small, but there could be a lot of them, which would make attacking them hard. On the other hand, they could also be big and tanky. But, to find out what kind of spiders John was facing, he had to go further. And it's not like there are many options he could try to leave this place... He had to get to that individual to get out of his Barrier. So, the only option was to go forward...

After following the path for what felt like an eternity, John noticed changes in his surroundings; the walls and floor started to become flatter and more even as if someone actually started to build around here. The crystals in the walls were also more shaped like actual lamps or torches than naturally occurring crystals, and the most unnerving thing John didn't want to appear around him did: spider webs. These webs did not look like small spiders either, as they started to cover whole patches on the walls and big parts of the floor that John tried to avoid as best as he could. Looking closer at the material, the strings inside the web also looked bigger and more durable than those of normal spiders.

At some point, John reached a point where the webs were blocking the complete hallway. 'No way around it now,' thought John, as he cut the thick web with his spear. It actually took barely any effort to cut a way through that dense veil of web and then remove it from his spear (by now his assumption was that magic weapons could cut more easily through non-magic materials), so he could move further now. When he made his first step, it looked like the web was vibrating, and a second later, he could hear a melodious voice seemingly from everywhere. The voice was highly distorted so he couldn't tell if that indeed was the delivery girl or not.

"Oh? So the hero finally found his way to the cave of the monster. Are you ready to face your imminent doom?" followed by an airy and slightly arrogant laugh. And at that point did John hear the clattering of a lot of legs and around some corner in the distance scuttled some spiders, three to be exact. Their bodies were as big as dogs, and, with their wide legs, they made quite the imposing figure. Even in the dim light, John could see that these were mechanical spiders since their eyes were glowing red and the joints connecting the legs were mechanical ball joints. These things also crawled along the wall and the ceiling with a scary speed, but John had enough time to cast Observe:

Okay, these things should be easy enough, though they were the least of his problems as it seemed. Also, was Aranea Balefire the woman/girl he had just heard talk? Any further thought about these spiders was interrupted, as these things started to jump at him. While he could dodge the first spider (and getting a skill for that) and impale the second spider on his spear, the third spider directly landed in his face and started to bite him with sharp claws.

Piercing damage! 8 DMG + 8 DMG when removing the weapon

-5HP

Ack! That thing on his face was annoying as hell! And John had to try hard to keep his balance since these things were quite heavy... While trying to pull the spider off his face with one hand, he more instinctively than tactically swung his spear in the air, removing the spider from his spearhead in the process. The arc his spear took was a lucky one, as it seemed, because he got another pop-up saying that he dealt 6 DMG to another opponent, so he probably hit the spider that he dodged first! Meanwhile, he actually got a good grip on the spider still clinging to his face and was able to rip that one off, throwing it against the closest wall.

8 DMG

Nice, so he could also just throw these things around and deal damage to them. Now that he had space to breathe again since both spiders were sent flying, John had one idea that he wanted to try on one of these things. The sheet said these things were automatons, so could he Bond one of them to him so it wouldn't attack him anymore? The skill said that people and creatures had to be agreeing to the Bond, but items and machines didn't. So, why not try it out? Not like he had many skills that relied on mana that could help him right now.

Looking over the two remaining spiders, John could see that the 'healthier' one was just getting ready to jump again, so he took the opportunity and tried to catch the thing in midair. When his hand made contact with the chassis of the spider, he concentrated on channeling his mana into the thing without actually hurting it further. And to his honest surprise: It worked! At the point of contact, he could see that the small emblem that was on his character sheet since he got the Bond skill now appeared:

Bond, Lv. 2, you can now hold 4 Bonds at the same time.

That didn't stop the other spider, though, that was skittering towards him again, only to meet his foot that was sent its way and crashed it into the wall again, this time actually killing it. The spider in his hand meanwhile was docile, or as docile as a spider could be, and was fidgeting in a way that made John think that it wanted some solid surface for its feet. When he put the spider down, its behavior was ... canine as it ran around him in circles, even jumping a couple of times...

Okaaay, this is strange... He didn't have much time to think about that, however, as he got another two pop-ups:

Bond, Lv.3, you can hold 6 Bonds now. Also, you can locate your Bonds now by concentrating on the Bond.

Okay, that one was not his fault, that was Brun's fault! He didn't have anything to do with that... Looking at his inventory, he saw that he got another of those Valkyrie's Tears, maybe he should do something with that at some point...

While he didn't pay attention to the happy spider at his feet, it seemingly went through the bodies of the other spiders and dumped all the items directly in front of John those items being two ten Dollar bills, some bent metal plates, and some circuitry. Well, looking at the loot table of these things, he wasn't that surprised by that... Although it was nice to see that they dropped something at all. So John just put the stuff in his inventory and went further into the cave, prepared for the next group of enemies...

Thinking about it, this really seemed like an old-school RPG, where the hero (or group of heroes) would try to defeat some evil being at the end of the dungeon...

Also since he could just do that now, he activated the eye upgrade and also looked through the eyes of the spider that was skittering along the ceiling (thankfully the vision was reduced to two eyes, so he didn't have the massive headache of looking through eight eyes). Now that he had to concentrate on his own vision and the vision of the spider, it was dizzying, to say the least, but his body at least started to get used to it at some point.

Now, where was this Aranea Balefire?