Road to Auer Session 6: Talking Spiders and the Catacombs of Labor Ethics

The party was hired by Corsco to head into the Church of the Three within Telas and head into the crypts to grab an item from one of the soon to be interred. When they got there, they found there was supposed to be a funerary ritual for one of the traveling clerics. They found Brother Cody, the dwarven caretaker knocked unconscious and bound in webbing and the door to the chapel slightly ajar. They woke up the caretaker and noticed he was missing his hands, which was not a new thing, they had just not met him before. His helper golem was out getting him more supplies at the moment so he was alone as greeter. Something bit him and everything went dark. Nonne, Gorg, Halanthis, 04, Balziros, Terror, Longshot, and Quiggles made their way into the church and found it empty of clerics, but over populated with webs. They found drag marks leading into the catacombs but had to solve a simple puzzle to drop the stairs.

Once below the group found themselves in a series of catacomb tunnels leading in all directions. To the east they heard movement and saw something getting dragged. Balziros and Nonne ran over to check it out and found a wolf sized spider dragging an unconscious priest down the hallway. They told it to stop and he did. The spider, whose name they could not complete with humanlike mouths and nicknamed Bob, was taking this man to his boss, the One Who Walks In Shadows. It seemed the boss wanted these clerics for some purpose but the lower spiders had not been informed, just being the grunt work force. The group asked how the spider could talk and Bob told them he was awakened, he and his other spiders were awoken by this One Who Walks In Shadows and were doing his bidding. Quiggles took this chance to ask if the spider was happy where he worked and if he would be interested in a tiny little revolution against his masters. At that moment more spiders came out of another tunnel behind the group and attacked the party.

One of the spiders was the size of a horse and kept disappearing into the ethereal plane while they fought him, the giant wolf spiders were attacking with spells, and the creepy choldrith, a terrible mix of person and spider, snuck up on the group and vexed Nonne. The spider casters targeted the rear of the group, attempting to identify threats, they chose poorly. After a few rounds of combat thousands of tiny swarming spiders pulled out of a crack in the wall and attempted to cover Balziros and Terror. Failing, one swarm ended up short lived and the other returned to the wall. The other spiders did not expect to be stabbed by Longshot as much, their lives were very short indeed, even more so with three paladins. Both Gorg and 04 were close enough to cause them all sorts of problems. The phase spider failed at eluding the group, dying to the spells of Terror. The group looked around and could hear Nonne yelling at his foe, the choldrith was a jerk and kept running away and throwing webs at Nonne. He eventually had it cornered in one of the catacomb’s preparation sites. A half-spirited attempt for peace was made and one of the paladins ended the beast. The group looked around and found an elf laid out on a cold slab wearing a cameo pendant that seemed to scream Corsco, so they figured that was what he was after.

The group went back to Bob, who had been hiding as the unconscious person’s back pack the entire battle. Bob told them about the hole in the wall and the spider base beyond. The clerics had been working on this area of the catacombs and the spiders took advantage of the building to do some demolition of their own. The group pressed Bob for more information on what he would be doing with the body he was carrying around. Eventually they convinced him to trade his smelly old human body in webbing for a nice juicy surface rabbit. Quiggle conjured a meat facsimile dead rabbit for Bob, offering to trade it for the bound body. Bob was on the fence until he realized this must be a special above ground rabbit, it even glowed, so he accepted the deal. The group woke up the priest to find his name was Jarel and set him back to the church above. Quiggles also told Bob not to eat this rabbit right away, he should hide it somewhere so it did not get stolen by the other spiders, and by no means should he eat it now. Quiggles knowing the conjuration would expire as soon as he either summoned another thing or the rabbit took any damage, information that will come in handy later. Bob was ecstatic. They asked him about the lay out of the spider base and he offered to show them. Halanthis had seen a giant spider before so he beast shaped into one. Halanthis and Bob made their way into the caves and explore the base while the rest of the group waited back in the catacombs.

Bob gave Halanthis the grand tour. He met the guards, got to see the web chamber full of spider egg nests, saw the arcane workshop where all the spiderlings that showed an aptitude for magic were trained in the fantastic spell of magic missile, and eventually was shown the pretty big chasm. There was a thirty-foot wide chasm within a larger chamber with a opposite “shore” with a tunnel leading away. a voice from the far tunnel cut across the distance demanding Bob go and get the body he had been tasked to get. Bob said he was working on it, he just wanted to show some outside help the ropes, gesturing at Halanthis. The voice, which belonged to a large elf body attached to a spider moved further down into the tunnel and out of sight. Bob and Halanthis returned to the others.

Bob told them his boss was kind of mad, he doesn’t really see the boss often but knows he is powerful. The group thanked Bob and sent him back into the base to hide his magic rabbit meat. He gleefully ran off. Halanthis explained to the rest of the group what was ahead and a plot was made. The group walked up to the two spider guards, the guards were armed with spears and shields and demanded to know who they were. They told the spiders they were with Bob and asked if the guards were interested in better wages, more time off, pensions, and more food then they could imagine. The guards had never heard about revolutions before, but that quickly changed. They were hesitant at first but where offered berets, which Quiggles summoned two hats connected by a thin thread and in the distance, they heard a pitiful wailing scream of woe. Not sure what exactly what had happened the group figured Bob was in trouble. The guards were excited about two hats as well as this revolution thing and let the group pass, assured when the party came back, they would bring real resistance berets back for the guards, but the guards just made their own with webbing. The group got to the webbing room. The room was about forty feet long and wide with about two feet thick webbing coating the floor. They could see the main exit as well as the arcane training room. They concocted magical means of climbing ropes with webbing attached to them but Nonne and Balziros just ended up walking and cutting through the webs, avoiding the egg clusters.

Within the magic room they found young spiders attempting to cast the biggest spell they could, magic missile. While adorable and dangerous, the group decided to teach them about revolutions. One of the small spiders giggled and turned in a circle, revolving around his own axis. Nonne and Quiggles did the talking in this room and eventually were able to borrow the rest of the spell book the spiders were using under the guise of being book inspectors, and took the higher-level spells for themselves. They joined the rest of the group by the chasm and could hear sobbing from deep within the pit.

Balziros tossed the magic light coin down the pit and lost sight of it and did not hear it hit the ground. The group made a sequence of ropes to scale down the side of the chasm, most were real, one of which was a conjuration again. The group made their way into the pit and at the bottom found a larger cavern system, which was damp, but not from spider tears. They found Bob sobbing his eight eyes out… he had broken his meat rabbit somehow and was beside himself. The group assured him his future was bright, and better food would be coming this way. They calmed him down with a field promotion and asked him to look after the fledgling revolution in the caves above. They asked him what was down here and he told them about the tides and the tunnels. He directed them to the important place down here and climbed back up the walls. The group followed his guidance and made their way to a path that led upwards and into a large cavern that had what appeared to be a large giant built fortress surrounded by multiple war camps. Now in the midst of numerous foes, we stopped there for the night.