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Session 20, Spider Cavern

Paldegora 

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Session 20 – 2023-05-13

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==== Summary ====

They started this session just after having killed a giant spider in the entry chamber leading into the tunnels. They started checking the bodies in the web sacks hanging around the chamber. Most were identified as xvarts. There were also a couple of goblins and a few humans. The xvarts held a little coin but nothing else of interest. The goblins wore the wyvern patch and had a little coin but nothing else of interest. The humans included a mage, a fighter, and a priest of Phi. They searched the mage and found a nice staff, a scroll case with a fireball scroll within, a very nice jeweled dagger, and some coinage. The warrior had a very nice bastard sword and some coinage. The priest had a ring, a pouch with a couple of vials, and a bag of holding with a single 500gps ruby inside.

The party made its way southwest down the tunnel finding more xvart victims along the way. They ran into another giant spider and finished it off. They searched more bodies, all xvarts, and made their way southwest again. They came to a split where they ran into three more giant spiders. They fought them and killed them. These spiders were a little different as they had a multicolored underbelly which was odd. The first spiders they fought didn't have these. The party discovered them after moving through an area devoid of spiderwebs. Symon postulated that this may be a no-spider zone. The two different types of spiders remained divided by the gap. 

The party continued on and ran into another spider with a multicolored underbelly. They defeated it and moved on. The webbing was getting very bad and sticking to their feet. Eryn had to stop a few times to scrape the webbing from her boots as it was hindering her movement. They finally brought Xor up with the torch to burn away the webbing before they moved through any area. The party found a hobgoblin carrying orders. The orders were from Grish-ta-nak who ordered him to take his company and continue moving south. It was addressed to "Spinebreaker". He had nothing else of value but a little coinage. Across from him were some boards piled up. They were planks that Symon later determined were likely flooring. 

They continued on and found a human body that was unremarkable. He was likely a citizen of the nearby town. They also found an end to the tunnel in an alcove with no webbing inside. Exploring that, they found a hole in the ceiling leading into darkness. Eryn climbed the remnant of a ladder built into the wall there, up into the darkness. She used her infravision to see that she was in a small room. There was a door to the east. She moved to the door and opened it finding a much bigger room. There was a little light from the other side but before she could look further, she instinctively dodged a web that came out of the darkness. She tried to close the door to prevent any more attempts but she wasn't strong enough. 

Eryn moved back to the edge of the hole she had climbed up through and paused, watching for any activity from beyond the door. The door was suddenly ripped from its hinges and as it was, Eryn step off the edge and dropped through the hole landing near Xor. She announced, "Back up, look out, something is coming! Bigger and meaner spider!". She and Xor planted themselves, weapons drawn, and waited. Behind the group, just beyond Angelique, webbing fired in from above the tunnel and started forming a thick wall. It didn't stop until the wall was complete and the way out blocked. She told everyone what had happened. Symon thought to start burning it and figured it would take 15 to 20 minutes to burn it away. Meanwhile, a giant spider, fully multicolored, dropped through the hole and attacked. 

The first thing they noticed was the color of its exoskeleton. It was multicolored all over, its belly was pale. Its eyes were all different colors as well. They were blue, green, red, white, and black. Its first attack came just after all its eyes turned red. It was a cone of fire. Xor, Eryn, and Cal-El were caught in it. They fought it! With its next attack, all of the eyes turned black, and a cone of some sort of toxic gas spewed forth engulfing Xor, Eryn, and Cal-El again. They continued pressing the attack.  Angelique cast an aid spell on Cal-El and used her bow after that. Symon cast magic missile hitting it. Cal-El was blocked from getting into melee range with it and was forced to use ranged attacks.

With the next attack from the spider, its eyes all turned white, and bitter cold frost issued forth. Xor, Eryn, Cal-El, and now Angelique took damage from this. After this attack, Angelique and Cal-El backed up to get further out of range from these attacks. Symon broke out his slingshot and missed. With the spider's next attack, the eyes all turned blue. Lightning shot forth hitting Xor, Symon, and barely missing Angelique. Symon collapsed from the damage. Xor was looking pretty bad. They continued hitting it while Angelique healed Symon for 1 point of damage and told him to remain quiet. The others pressed their assault hitting the spider some more. The spider's eyes turned red again and fire poured forth and hit Xor and Eryn. It was too much for Xor and he collapsed. Symon raised his head and cast a final magic missile which finished off the spider.

They determined that the exoskeleton would be worth a lot. Eryn and Cal-El went back up through the hole and searched the building. It was full of the extra thick and sticky spiderwebs. Eryn made it to the outer door and opened it to find they were in a house near the northern entrance to Stonebridge. They moved back down to the tunnels and let the others know where they were. While they were in the house, Symon continued burning away the web wall that had formed behind them.

They didn't know what special qualities the staff or the ring had. Symon would be weakened too much identifying them, so they'll have to wait on that. With the vials, they decided that Fred, Freddie, and Fredrick would be able to identify.

==== Detail ====

They started this session just after having killed a giant spider in the entry chamber leading into the tunnels. Angelique healed Eryn for 8 points. The party divvied up four potions of extra healing. Cal-El snuck into the chamber and noticed cacoon-like sacks hanging here and there. Obviously, these are the victims that have been their source of nourishment. Most are desiccated and decayed. He found the one that appeared blueish to be a Xvart. None of the sacks in this room held anything still living. Cal-El cut through each to find out. He checked to see if there was anything on them. They found a few bigger bodies. They turned out to be goblins. Checking them, they found 10 copper pieces and 7 silver pieces. They also found the wyvern emblem on them. The Xvart's didn't have these emblems. 

They found a couple of other bodies that were much bigger. They turned out to be human. Cal-El cut into those sacks to find one man in robes that gave him the appearance of a mage. He fished around the web some and found a staff. He stood it against the wall and searched some more. He eventually pulled on something hard, shaped like a cylinder. He whipped it out. It was a scroll case. He was relieved. He placed it on the ground near the staff. He moved to the other body and found it was a fighter. He had chainmail on and he found and pulled out a sword. It was a very nice bastard sword. He handed it back to Xor who took it and tested it. It was very well-balanced and much better than his other sword. He also found 100gps, 25sps, and 10 cps in a bag. They did not have the wyvern symbol on their clothing.

Xor pointed out the staff and scroll case to Symon. He picked them up and started checking them out. Eryn found another body and opened the sack to find a priestly person. She invited Angelique over to look at the corpse. He was dressed as a priest of Phi. They couldn't tell how long he had been there. He wore scale armor as well. Eryn dug around and found a mace. There was nothing special about the mace or the armor. There was a ring that looked very nice and a pouch. The pouch contained two vials. Angelique opened one and determined it had no smell. There was a bag there as well. She opened it up to see what was in it and found it was a bag of holding. Digging around in it, she found a beautiful Ruby.

Symon went over to the mage and searched his robes to see if there were any hidden pockets. He found a jeweled dagger in a hidden pocket. They began moving southwest. Further in, Eryn heard some scratching sounds. She couldn't see anything with her infravision. She peeked around a corner and saw some more small spider sacks with bodies in them. She spotted something with her infravision, something tucked behind a wall. She turned to Cal-El and pointed out the area to him. He pulled out his swords and made his way toward the creature. Xor followed him. Eryn went wide and continued down towards it. Cal-El moved closer to Eryn and Xor followed up. Eryn pulled out her bow and prepared to fire on anything that moved. Cal-El crossed an area of webbing and as he did, a huge spider rushed forward and attacked. 
 
Eryn got the first shot off but she missed. She got another shot off and it skittered off the spider doing no damage. The spider attacked Cal-El, missing him. Cal-El attacked it and hit it twice. He injured it badly but it is still standing. Xor stepped up and hit it. This ended it. They spotted the bodies of more goblins and xvarts nearby. Searching them, they found 10 silver pieces and 5 copper pieces. They continued moving down into the next area. To the east was the chamber they had spied on their way out. Checking it out, they found more xvarts. On these, they found 10 copper pieces. She went back to the rest of the group and they started down the southwest tunnel.
 
As they moved further down the passageway, Eryn noticed there were no webs here. She whispered that back to Cal-El who mimed something indicating she should be watchful of traps. She started being more vigilant for potential traps. They continued moving down the tunnel, finding no traps. A little further down, they spotted 3 more giant spider charging forward. Eryn called out, "Big spiders coming!", as she backed up to the beginning of the split they were starting through. She and Cal-El took up positions on either side of that split. One spider came up the right side of the split at Cal-El, while the other went up the left side of the split toward Eryn. She changed to her sword and shield and they stood their ground, preparing to receive the charge.    
 
Cal-El killed the first spider with a wicked hit. I describe it that way because Chris forgot to turn the recorder back on when we returned from a restroom break. Eryn hit the spider that charged her. The spider missed Eryn with its attack. Xor jumped up on the rock that formed the split, and hit the spider attacking Eryn. The third spider moved up and attacked Xor but missed. Angelique fired on the one on Xor and hit it. With their second attack, both Xor and Angelique missed. Symon attacked late and missed.

Xor was attacked but missed. Eryn hit the spider facing her and the spider returned the favor. She failed to withstand the poison and was paralyzed for 4 rounds. She also took 1 point of damage. Xor retaliated, hitting it. Symon missed with the slingshot. Angelique fired and missed. Cal-El stepped up and hit twice cutting down the spider on Xor. Angelique dropped the spider on Eryn with her second shot. There were no more scratching sounds. They waited for Eryn to become freed. 

Noting that there were no spider webs in this area, Cal-El looked at the giant spiders and realized that they were not the same as the other spiders. He saw that their bellies had an odd coloration he'd never seen before. He got Xor's attention and he brought more light to the scene. They saw that the belly was marked with a smattering of different colors. Angelique suggested that he cut across it to see how deep it went. Cal-El took a dagger and sliced through it and found it wasn't a superficial marking on the outside of its body, it continued under the skin. If Cal-El could, he would have remarked that it was not like anything he'd seen before. Cal-El pointed out the missing webs to Xor who hadn't noticed that yet. 

Eryn finally came out of her paralyzation. Angelique said she'd just noticed something, "These particular spiders are not the same kind as the others we'd killed. It looked like we were dealing with two different species of giant spider.". Symon surmised that either these spiders were unable to produce webs or we are in a sort of no-mans land or more to the point, a no-spiders land, where rival spiders don't go and don't build webs. Eryn moved further ahead and checked for traps at choke points. She stopped to listen occasionally along the way. She didn't hear anything.

Further down, Eryn ran into webs that crossed the entire path. She whispered back to the others, "We're coming up on more webs!". She paused and looked with her infravision but didn't see anything. She ran into more webs. She tried to avoid touching them but she found they were sticking to her feet. This was beginning to hinder her movements. She pulled out a dagger and scraped some of it off of her boots. Upon seeing this, Cal-El motioned Xor forward with the torch. Xor moved up and started burning the webs away. That was very slow as these webs seemed to be fire-resistant. Eryn kept moving forward, ahead of the rest, stopping occasionally to scrape her shoes clean to keep from hindering her movements. Cal-El tried to move forward but it was still bogging him down. They finally stopped and let Xor overtake them, burning it away in front of them. They followed him.

Eryn switched to her bow while following Xor so she could fire on anything charging in. That's about the time that a spider came out of the shadows and attacked Xor. It missed. Symon and Eryn each fired on it and missed. Cal-El moved up beside Xor and attacked the spider and missed his first attack but hit with his second attack. Xor hit it as well. Angelique moved to a better spot and fired, missing it. Eryn fired again and took it down. They continued to move forward burning more webs. They hacked and burned their way further until they found a pile of wood lying next to the western wall in a small alcove. They also spotted a body under some more webs across the tunnel. 

Xor burned away the webbing slowly so as not to burn the body. As he cleared it away, he found the body of a hobgoblin. The body had the wyvern symbol. It was wearing scale mail and possessed a shield and a battle axe. None of it appeared exceptional. They also found a bag with correspondence in it with some orders within that said, "Take your company and move it south! By order of Grish-ta-nak!". The orders were addressed to "Spinebreaker". Eryn examined the wood across the tunnel and found it had nail holes as if it were some sort of planking. Definitely out of place. She searched the wall at that spot for concealed doors and found none. Cal-El looked up above to see if the wood came from above but didn't see anything. Xor spotted an end to this path. On the western side were more spiderwebs. On the eastern side was a spot that was spiderweb free. 

Xor moved closer to get a look at a body on the western side. It appeared to be human. He burned away and cut away webs and found the individual was likely just a regular citizen, nothing remarkable about him. He had no armor or weapons on him. It didn't appear to have been here for very long, The clothes were still relatively new compared to the other bodies they'd been finding. Cal-El examined the pile of wood that Eryn had passed earlier and tried to determine its function. He finally determined that it is likely flooring. 

Eryn hacked through the webbing to the south corner and found a hole above, seeing a frame above, where the boards were likely taken from. Beyond the frame was darkness. Xor moved up and held a torch out to light it up. They could see where there was a ladder to climb up into it that was broken up. Eryn used what was left to climb up. She looked into a room where there was no light source. She didn't see anything with her infravision. She did see a door that was closed to the west. Xor whispered back, "Found an opening!". Eryn whispered down to Xor, "There is a door up here. I'm going to peak through it and see what's beyond it.". She crept up to the door and listened at the door. Hearing nothing, she opened it and peeked out. There was a much bigger outer room. There were lots of spider webs. She saw a little bit of light on the other side and opened the door all the way. 

Eryn dodged a strand of webbing that shot out at her and hit the wall nearby. She tried to pull the door too but she wasn’t strong enough. She backed away quickly to the hole and paused at the edge to see what happened next. The door was suddenly ripped from the hing and as Eryn saw this, she took a step back and dropped through the hole. At the same time, below, in the tunnels, before the area where they'd found the boards, Angelique saw webbing start pouring in from above. It built a wall right there, behind the group, cutting off any kind of quick retreat. She backed away from it and said, "What in the world?". The wall kept growing thicker and thicker and then it stopped, covering the entire tunnel. 

Eryn announced, as she landed, "Back up, look out, something is coming! Bigger meaner spider.". Xor backed up and so did she as she pulled out her sword and shield. Angelique announced that there was a web wall behind them and that they had nowhere to go. Xor had his sword out and ready. Symon used a torch to start burning away the web wall behind them. He guessed because it was so thick, that it might take 15 to 20 minutes to burn it away. Dropping into the room from the hole above was a giant spider, but its whole body was the same as the colorful bellies of the other giant spiders. It was much bigger than the others and its underbelly was kind of pale. Its eyes were different as well. Each of its eyes, rather than being black marbles, was colored differently. One was blue, another was green, another was red, another was white, and there was a black one.

Cal-El thought, "What new devilry is this!". Too bad he couldn't speak it. When it landed inside the room, all of its eyes changed to the same color, Red. Suddenly shooting out from it was a cone of fire. Cal-El, Xor, and Eryn were caught in it but their reactions allowed them to dodge a lot of the impact. Those who dodged it only took 3 points of damage, the others took 6 points of damage. Cal-El fired and missed. Eryn moved up and tried to hit it but missed. The spider's eyes changed color again and this time became black. A cone of some kind of gas, like chlorine sprayed out enveloping Cal-El, Xor, and Eryn again. They all managed to dodge it to avoid some of the damage taking 5 points. Xor hit it for quite a bit(17 points) of damage. Symon moved to a vantage point where he could see the creature and fired a magic missile into it for 6 points of damage. Angelique touched Cal-El and cast the Aid spell on him. Xor took his second attack and hit it for 14 more points of damage. Cal-El fired and missed again.

During the next round, the eyes turned white and another cone shot out of it striking Eryn, Xor, Cal-El, and Angelique with severe icy cold. They all managed to dodge some of the damage only taking 4 points. Symon used his slingshot and missed. Cal-El backed up out of range of the cones. He fired and hit it. Eryn swung at it again and with her third natural twenty in a row, hit it for 8 points of damage. Xor missed. Angelique backed out of range and fired again, but missed. Cal-El and Angelique both fired again and both hit it for 6 and 2 points respectively.

The spider's eye's changed color again and this time they were blue. A lightning bolt erupted from it. It hit Xor and Symon and bounced off of the wall and barely missed Angelique. Both Xor and Symon took the full brunt of this one, with Xor looking pretty rough and Symon collapsing to the ground. Xor fought back hitting it for 10 points of damage and Eryn missed. Cal-El fired and missed. Angelique fired and missed. Cal-El fired again and hit for 4 points of damage. Xor hit for 18 more points of damage, and Angelique hit it for another 8 points of damage. 

The next round started with the spider changing its eyes to Red again. Eryn dodged some of it and only took 2 points of damage. Xor took the whole 4 points of damage which proved to be too much for him and he collapsed. Cal-El dropped his bow and moved up to attack with swords. He hit with his first attack for 11 points of damage and missed with his other sword arm. Eryn thrust her sword into the spider and missed. Angelique cast a cure light wounds spell on Symon and whispered to him, "Don't move!". 

As the next round started, Symon fired two magic missiles into the spider, killing it. It rolled over and curled up and died. It was determined that it was a Drake spider. Symon studied it to see if it had any elements of dragon to it such as scales or any kind of draconic look. He determined that it was mostly a spider with a multi-colored exoskeleton. It would probably be pretty valuable if they could get it. They maybe could have some decent armor made from it. He seemed to think this was not a full-grown adult. They decided to strip the exoskeleton and put it in the bag of holding. All of the extra sticky webbings are from it as well. 

Symon and Eryn each drank a portion of their potion of extra healing. Eryn climbed back up and found the door to this sub-room was still open. Cal-El followed her up. She wondered where this was. She couldn't tell how far south and west they had come. She moved into the main room and couldn't see anything through the windows but a little light. There was more of the heavy sticking webbing around. It had apparently made its main nest in the southwest corner of the main room. There was a door on the eastern wall. Cal-El started burning away at the webbing to search while Eryn hacked her way through to the door and cracked it. She spotted other buildings and realized that they were in Stonebridge. They were in a building along the road leading into town from the north. There were two dilapidated buildings north of the western corner of the tavern. She was looking out from one of those.

She told Cal-El where they were and opened the door to let more light in so they could get a good look around. This used to be a home that is now in serious need of maintenance. There is evidence that the spiders have been here for quite a while. It appears there have been a lot of struggles in here. Having searched everything carefully, they didn't find anything of value. They closed the door to the building and moved back down through the hole, rejoining everyone in the cavern below letting them know where they were. Meanwhile, Symon had burned a path through the spiderweb wall that had appeared while they were down there. The body in the southwest corner was a townsman.  

Symon checked the scroll case they'd found. There was a scroll of Fireball inside. The staff seemed to be of exceptional quality but he couldn't determine if it had any other special qualities without casting the identify spell. It leaves him weakened for some time afterward so he’ll wait until we are somewhere safer to dop that. Eryn determined that the Ruby they'd found in the bag of holding was worth 500gps. They could not determine what thew vials contained. "Perhaps Fred, Freddie, and Fredrick could shed some light on them!", Symon said. They'd save those for them. Symon also determined that they had come about 200ft down this tunnel.

The spiders with rainbow bellies were worth 425xps a piece. The Drake spider was worth 1,200xps. The party received a total of 580 + 10% for 638.