Giant ******* Spiders

Week 5, Thursday;Giant ******* Spiders
GM: Quentin

Players:
 * Amaranth Bandawax (Jen)
 * Poppy Montajay (Sam)
 * Tarian (Sophia)
 * Voclan (Alex)
 * Perun [sp?] (John)

Report from Poppy and Amaranth (Sam and Jen)
I had heard reports of people being attacked by giant spiders in Camp Logging in the Royal Forest and decided it would be a good idea to take a group of people to help clear the nest and protect the residents of the camp.''' Lets face it killing monsters is really all we’re good at Amaranth. The people of the camp mostly looked after themselves while we killed spiders and argued about who would cast the sanctuary.'''

We ended up with a group of five to go to the camp, myself, Poppy, Tarian who had come with us previously when we investigated the missing Orc adolescents, a Cleric named Voclan and a Ranger named Perun who has a monkey companion. '''That monkey is so cute. It’s good having Tarian back she worked so well with us against the giant scorpion and her knowledge of the Royal forest was very useful.'''

We went to the Vanguard quartermaster for supplies and I was given a riding mastiff in place of a horse. I can’t believe I helped you buy that dog, still at least we have a space heater for winter now. We then headed for Bellefontaine and from there travelled to Camp Logging. '''Didn’t Voclan meet up with one of his cleric buddies there and procure some antitoxins? Those were so helpful'''. On the road we saw some refugees fleeing from the camp and while talking to one of them – a female Dwarf (such a lovely lady she gave us excellent intelligence on the defences the villagers had set up.) – we found that a day or so ahead of us was another person from the Citadel, an allegedly good looking male Dwarf (I recall she used the words ‘dashing’ and ‘heroic’, we never did see him at the camp, I hope he didn’t fall prey to the spiders) also headed to Camp Logging. We also learned that the spider attacks on the camp had become increasingly frequent and some of the residents had taken up arms in defence of Camp Logging, led by a human called Terry.''' Good man this Terry, the world could use a few more of him. Amaranth, we have to make sure he survives!'''

Arriving at Camp Logging, we found Terry and a barricade that had been set up to slow the spiders down. I set up a sanctuary perimeter surrounding the barricades and we prepared for the night, when the spider attacks would occur. I still think sanctuary was the best spell you ever learned.

During the attack, we defended the barricade reasonably well, defeating the smaller of the giant spiders reasonably easily but they appeared to have been a distraction as a huge spider swung around the side to where Poppy was. The spider was over seven feet tall, taller than the tallest Orc I have seen, and covered in smaller spiders – probably its offspring. All of the spiders appeared to have acidic blood that burns the skin on contact, and some form of venom that causes numbness and sluggish movement. You seem to be missing the bit from here w'''here I appeared from the mist covered in blood sword aloft and saved Perun from the acidic qualities of the spider blood that was pouring over him from the near-fatal wound he had just inflicted. I’m very fond of that moment Amaranth for I finally began to understand why I was pushed so hard into becoming a paladin. I might be developing a ‘saving people thing’ please don’t let me do anything to silly Amaranth.'''

The spider appeared to be using some form of magic somehow –on its appearance there was what at first seemed to be a fog cloud but upon closer inspection it was a very fine floating mass of spider silk threads. '''Note here that the best way to deal with these webs is to set them on fire. Please don’t try this at home.'''

Poppy and Perun(I’m flattered Amaranth really but it was mostly Perun and Esteban I just cut off one of its legs) with the assistance of Estaban – one of the Camp residents– killed the spider. Estaban dealt the killing blow, and upon the death of the huge spider, all the smaller ones swarmed off the corpse and onto Estaban and began advancing on the rest of us as well. The five of us from the citadel tried using fire to hold off the swarm but it was not overly effective and Perun almost died before I yelled at them all to get to the river and drown the spiders. '''I think it would be a good idea to memorise a map of the area next time we go to fight somewhere. We had days on the trip why didn’t we familiarise ourselves with the land we could have… well lets just not make that mistake again.'''

There were two casualties that night, Estaban and another of the defenders. There is still a question of the rest of the spiders, why that spider was so massive, how it was using magic and if there are any more that size, of even larger. I would like to take a team and return to Camp Logging as soon as possible. '''Of the 382 species of spider in the world 8 are the size of dogs and 3 the size of small horses. This is not entirely true. That spider was much larger than a small horse  - it was larger than an orc sized horse. Something is definitely going on and it is our duty to put a stop to this.'''

'''AMARANTH!!! THERE’S A '''SPIDER IN MY BEDROLL!!!! PLEASE GET IT!!!!!'''