Growfest 7, 593 CY, temple ruins on unknown island

Strangely, we decided to wait until morning to explore the ruins, or even look at them close up— they are the home of many of the island’s spiders. Worse, the group decided we could not risk a fire, so it was cold rations for dinner.

So, after a rather uncomfortable night in the open, we gathered our gear and headed in to fight the spiders with some daylight at our backs. A half dozen big spiders and many more swarms of small spiders ran out to greet us. They did not heed my offer to let them surrender (hey, I had to try!), so we slew them with swords and fire. I got bit by the largest spider; it took a good number of stabs before it finally collapsed dead. All in all the battle took about one minute. I wish we had done that the night before, as once we were in the ruins, it was as dark as night anyway.

We found a rope leading down into a shaft, plus some coins, simple weapons, a tarnished lantern (still filled with oil), a rusty pick and an equally rusty shovel. I thought these would all be useful, and as we climbed down, I dropped the shovel and pick down before climbing down the rope myself. More on this later.

We were able to find some footprints (both humanoid and spider) that lead off in several directions in a 30’ by 30’ chamber. Dora said “go left” so we headed in that general direction. It may have been a good choice (hard to know since we haven’t tried going “right” yet), as we discovered a wall filled with symbols, runes, and pictures depicting six-armed, bug-eyed people in what appeared to be a beam of light coming down from the sky. No one knew the language of the runes, or the meaning of the pictures.

We also found another rope leading down through a shaft.

Remember how I mentioned Dora and Triaa seem to have a “relationship” of some sort? It is not at all helpful. It is hard enough to care for three of these larger, cumbersome humanoids, but having two of them practically attached makes it that much more difficult.

We decided to go down this rope, which turned out to be 60’ or so in length. Dora and Triaa started down first (together); I was left holding the lantern (which I handed off to Alexander), pick and shovel. I dropped the pick down past my companions and was about to drop the shovel when I heard the elf and dwaft exclaim something about a big spider as they began to scramble back up the rope.

It was a big, big spider! I decided to drop the shovel on it, hoping to knock it back a few yards and give Dora and Triaa a few additional seconds to get back up the rope. I dropped the shovel, and it would have hit the big spider, had Triaa not managed to get on top of the spider at that exact moment. The shovel hit the elf. To make matters worse, it caused him to let go of the rope, and he ended up dropping the remaining forty or so feet to the chamber below. This interested the spider, which turned itself around to head back down the shaft.

I stepped up my own attack by leaping down onto the spider’s back and stabbing it repeatedly with a scimitar. I could hear Triaa cursing way down below me; Dora was just a few feet from me, when she inexplicably just let go of the rope, plummeting the last, well, forty or so feet to the ground, landing with a resounding *thud* on the floor below. She seemed to survive the fall, so I continued to stab at the spider while Alexander began to make his way down the rope himself, with the intention of healing our comrades.

By the time the spider and I got to the bottom of the shaft, it became clear that my friends were in real trouble— they’d been bitten by the spider and were all succumbing to the poison (or just the additional wounds). Triaa and Dora were both unconscious, and by the time I killed the spider, Alexander was too. I managed to survive the encounter without as much as a scratch.

I am sure there is a lesson to be learned here about having the wisdom to follow Yondalla’s guidance; I will have to impart this lesson on each of these larger folk as they regain consciousness.