Session 17 - Arachnid Attack!

[fraz]

Session #17:
Arachnid Attack!
[Saturday 02 April 05]
[updated 13 April 05 by [i:38af6b1a53]fraz[/i:38af6b1a53]]

[fraz: ?What's the title of tonight's session?"
GM: "Don?t know yet.  Let?s see how it goes."]

Sprouting Grass/Egg -1: Morning:

The party recovers from the battle with the Wendigo.  The body of the Wendigo burns upon the ground before them, set a-flame by one of Valen's Produce Flame spells.  Valen and Zurn move away from the blaze to meditate in peace while Arlen, worried about the flames spreading into the surrounding forest, clears debris away from the fire.

An hour later, Valen and Zurn return from their meditation.  The fire is no longer blazing.  It now smolders, but is abnormally hot, radiating intense heat.  Valen casts Create Water, tossing two gallons of liquid on the smoldering Wendigo corpse, but it only fizzles into steam with no apparent effect.

The party is ready to move on, but Valen and Arlen are very concerned about leaving the fire unattended.  After much discussion the party clears away more debris, baring a large area of earth around the corpse.

After this is done the party finally moves on in a south-east direction, resuming their search for the swamp-witch.  Arlen leaves behind the odd silver-colored dagger that he cast out into the woods at the onset of the battle with the Wendigo.

After traveling a bit, they come to the east-west road between the Forest Keep and Gorna.  The party halts to gain their bearings.  They have apparently gone too far, since Valen, Zurn and Belwar have now traveled two days south in search of the swamp-witch, when they were actually only instructed to journey one day south.  After much discussion, it is finally agreed upon to head north-east now to continue the search.

During the day of travel, Arlen and Himo continue to hear the strange whispering on the wind.  This is quite disturbing to Arlen, since he had hoped that this whispering would cease once the Wendigo was dealt with.

The party leaves the road and spends the rest of the day heading north-eastward.  A camp is set up as night approaches.

During the night, Arlen stays awake during his own watch and then during Himo's watch as well.  He is very concerned that Himo (or even Belwar, who also has been bitten by the Wendigo) could make another attempt for a midnight snack upon his arm.  He attempts to wake Belwar after Himo's watch, intending to remain awake for three full watches, but Belwar only mumbles and turns over, going right back to sleep again.  Arlen awakens Valen instead and finally settles down to a fitful night's sleep.  Nothing odd transpires, though, and the night eventually passes.

First Day of the New Moon: Sprouting Grass/Egg: Dawn:

Zurn sits on watch (the last of the night) when he sees an odd wavering visual effect over the ground at the edge of the firelight.  He reaches down to pick up a pine cone, intending to toss it at the strange visual effect.  However, the pine cone turns out to be a spider!  He swiftly casts it away realizing that there are also many more spiders swarming straight towards their campsite!  He yells for the others to awaken and prepares to defend himself.

The others leap into action upon awakening!  Himo casts a series of magic missiles as Belwar begins wiping out the spiders several at a time with his greataxe.  Mirri is bitten repeatedly as she skewers spiders one at a time on her spear.  Valen casts light to brighten up the battleground, which is still only dimly lit by the early dawn and the campfire.  Arlen backs up from the melee and begins a battle song to inspire courage in his companions.  He is uncertain about how else to help out, since firing arrows into the melee would generally be a bad idea, so he hangs back to keep his bard's song going.  Zurn Blesses the entire party as the combat continues.

The party (aside from Arlen who is still standing safely off to the side) is now completely surrounded by the spiders and the arachnids begin climbing up and onto some of the party members.  The combatants are bitten repeatedly and some notice a loss of strength due to the spiders' venom.

Valen, who has several spiders crawling upon him and has already received numerous bites, decides he has had enough.  After healing himself, he casts Produce Flame and begins seizing the spiders with his burning hands and throwing them to the ground.  Zurn also fights off the spiders with his masterworked flail.

Arlen runs over and knocks one off of Mirri's leg with his sheathed knife.  Belwar kills several more around his feet and then moves quickly over to help Valen.  He expertly slices and dices several spiders that are hanging onto the druid.

The battle finally winds down as Mirri brushes the final spider off of her fur and stomps upon it.  Valen then takes a moment to heal Mirri and himself.

The campsite is cleaned up and Valen, Zurn and Arlen roast and eat spider meat.  Belwar refuses to eat the spider meat and goes out into the surrounding woods to gather nuts and berries.

Himo also wanders off from the campsite on his own to look for food.  However, he soon gets a bit more than he bargained for when he runs into a huge spider the size of a boulder!  He is injured badly from the initial encounter, yet stands fast, casting Color Spray at the beast.  The huge spider seems unaffected by the spell though, thus Himo decides to cast Mirror Image as he flees from the monster.  The enormous spider chases after Himo, destroying a couple of his mirror images during the pursuit through the woods.  But the spider's legs are long and there is no way Himo can outrun it.  Fortunately, Belwar is foraging nearby and hears the commotion.  He hurries to Himo's aid.

Arlen, Valen, Mirri and Zurn also hear the activity and see the Color Spray lighting up the forest.  They all leap up and run towards the source to investigate.  Mirri quickly leaves the others behind and arrives on the scene just after Belwar.  Belwar has thrown an axe at the monster and he and Mirri now close in for melee combat with the beast.

Arlen and Valen finally arrive and Arlen pauses to begin another song of Inspire Courage.  Himo casts another Mirror Image spell as Belwar and Mirri continue their attack.  Valen closes in and strikes with his dagger while Arlen quickly notches and fires an arrow, piercing the spider in the eye and killing the beast!

Belwar recovers his thrown axe as Valen works on removing one of the enormous spider legs, which he plans to cook and split into rations for the party.  The entire group returns to the campsite where the spell-casters meditate for their spells while Arlen oversees the cooking of the spider meat.

[1,150 xp granted for the little spider battle; 360 xp granted for big momma-spider battle]
[Everyone lvls up!  Arlen achieves 2nd lvl]