Spiders and Statues

Somewhere in Northwestern Tarlanor, 3rd March 1655

As the hobgoblins were walking out, Gorfang changed his mind. Only half the gold? Besides... he wanted to see what the spear could do from the other end. Stepping quickly into the corridor, he picked it up from where it had come to rest after so nearly ending his career, and flung it at one of the receding hobgoblins. Once again, after being thrown, the spear blazed with an actinic white light and accelerated to many times the speed of his throw. Hurtling down the corridor, it tore completely through the hobgoblin and bounced further down the corridor, almost to the entrance hall. The clatter of it landing, and the scream of the felled hobgoblin, attracted Cheiron's attention and he peered into the corridor.

Looking down at his slain companion, the second hobgoblin's rage overcame his common sense. Drawing his sword, he charged back down the corridor towards the grinning orc, who readied his new morningstar and waited. Meanwhile, Cheiron picked up the spear and pitched it back the way it had come, following it a moment later.

This time it didn't go all the way through, but stuck in the hobgoblin, rendering him incapable of turning around. For a futile moment he struggled to pull it free, but then seeing Gorfang bearing down on him he abandoned that and drew his own sword. At that moment, Cheiron arrived behind and siezed the embedded spear, lifting the humanoid easily off its' feet. It screamed as the shaft tore cruelly through its' body, and then Gorfang arrived and despatched it with one crushing blow of his maul. Cheiron shook the body off the spear and nodded approval before tucking it into his saddlebag. Gorfang extracted the other half of the loot from the corpse of the hobgoblin Lynien hadn't robbed, and tossed it to her. Grinning, she stashed it, and then searched the bodies thoroughly, discovering a couple of hundred more gold and a belt that didn't look as if it had been made by hobgoblins at all. She passed it to Gorfang, who put it on, shrugged, and left it there.

The three of them returned to the main entrance hall, just as a new figure appeared at the broken-in doors. Fingers twitched towards weapons, and then relaxed as the newcomer lowered his hood and shook the water out of his cloak. Eloy Brackensen was one of their fellow guards on Dagaren's caravan, a human warrior of some ability. When last seen he'd been back with the wagons, and his appearance now hinted that they might not be completely stranded.

Sure enough, it emerged that the wagons had sheltered from the storm in another tomb, similar to the one they were in, but collapsed to leave a horseshoe-shaped rock wall that had protected the wagons from the worst of the weather. Once the tempest abated a bit, Brackensen had set out to try and locate the lost scouts and - probably of more importance to Dagaren - the cook and healer. His interest was caught by the exploration of this rather more intact tomb, and so he joined the others in venturing further in.

Returning towards the room where they'd fought the zombie lizard, Gorfang, Lynien and Eloy took the eastward turning just before it and ventured down the passage. Lynien led the way, checking expertly for traps, but the actual hazard caught her completely by surprise. Something brushed against her cheek. She ignored it, but then it brushed again and caught. She reached up and irritably flicked it away .. and stuck. Only then did she realize that, slowly, imperceptibly, filament by filament, she'd walked through thicker and thicker strands of almost invisible webs, until she was caught. "Stop!" she called.

Eloy shone the beam of his lantern around, revealing the webs in more detail, as Gorfang drew his blade and Lynien wormed her arm down to reach the stilleto knife strapped to her slim thigh. Each had the same thought in mind as they slashed at the webs; where you get giant webs, you must get .... Sure enough, a horrid pattering and skittering became audible, approaching from down the passage.

Eloy flashed his lantern down the corridor with increasing panic, but nothing was visible. It was only when the creatures were right on top of them that they realized the spiders were on top of them - running along the ceiling towards them. Lynien, freed, stepped smartly backwards out of harm's way and Eloy and Gorfang stepped forwards. Both struck; Eloy's spider chittered and thrashed its' legs horribly when he stabbed it with his sword, but Gorfang's strike with the heavy morning star sent the other tumbling back through the webs. It recovered immediately, however, and scuttled forwards again, only to be smashed to pulp by the bludgeon. Eloy despatched his with a second skilful stab, dodging sideways as the terrible poisoned fangs fell past him, and the three breathed a little easier.

At this point they noticed Cheiron was missing....

Meanwhile, back in the main entrance hall, Bog the cook looked up from his seat by the fire as the horse-man trotted back into view. Not pausing, Cheiron went across to the eastern door and, turning his back on it, hoofed it open. After peering inside he appeared mildly disappointed, so Bog went to look as well.

Inside was a room, empty save for dust, a single, small, stone chest in the center of the floor, and two rather crumbled statues of lizardmen flanking it against the left and right walls. Evidently no one had disturbed this chamber for many years. Cheiron looked down at the wizened creature beside him. "Go on," he said. "Open the box. It's sure to be full of gold." Bog looked up at him and smiled. "Not a chance," he said cheerfully. Cheiron was reminded that while Bog was small, weak, slow, smelly, and a miserable coward, he was not stupid.

Turning around, the centaur and the mongrel crossed the hall and - after a few failures - smashed open the western door. Inside was a statue, standing at the far end. It resembled a sarcophagus standing upright, except that the head of the figure carved upon its lid looked distorted and seemed to have tendrils instead of hair. A carved pattern resembling a pair of batlike wings extended from its temples.

Again, Bog was unwilling to go first, and Cheiron considered throwing him in. Instead, he readied his bow and sent an arrow straight at the statue's face. Rather as he'd expected, the arrow didn't bounce off, but carved a bloody track across a living creature. The eyes snapped open, revealing themselves as pits of green fire, and the mouth opened to emit the most dreadful, terrifying scream either Cheiron or Bog had ever heard. Terror gripped both of them rooted them to the spot, unable to move, as the head spread its wings and flapped slowly towards them.

As they looked around and wondered where the centaur was, a faint noise drifted towards Lynien, Eloy and Gorfang. The two warriors didn't notice it, but Lynien did - a horrific, inhuman scream. Either Cheiron was in trouble or he was the trouble; either way, they felt mildly bound to investigate, and set off towards the source of the sound.

Cheiron and Bog watched in helpless horror as the flying head approached them, licking its lips to reveal a mouthfull of horrific pointed teeth. Perhaps because of his armour and size, it chose Bog as its first victim. Swooping on him, it delivered a nasty bite. The effect of this startled Cheiron - Bog shook his head, stared around wildly, and then bolted out of the room. Hope sprang up in the centaur's heart. Sure enough, when his turn came, the bite - while painful - dispelled the fear, and he was able to move again. Furious, he attacked, and spear and sickle made short work of the creature.

A few moments later, the others arrived, and looked rather quizzically at the crumpled chunk of flesh, bone and brain on the ground. There wasn't much of it, and it didn't look worth all the noise. Cheiron shrugged and grinned, declining to explain, and went back over to the eastern room. Gorfang went with him.

Eloy and Lynien lingered. The sarcophagus interested Eloy, and he went and fetched what was left of the chunk of wood the slitheren had used as a ram. A few healthy wallops with this enlarged the hole to the point he could get an arm in. A brief rummage allowed him to retrieve a plain but well-made ring. He slipped it quietly into a pocket, and then turned to see Lynien leaning casually on the door, grinning at him, obviously quite aware of his attempt at stealth. "Found a ring," he said belatedly.

Gorfang and Cheiron regarded the chest on the floor of the eastern room. Made of stone, it looked to be fixed down. The statues flanking it, though badly eroded, worried Gorfang. "This looks obvious," he said briskly, "Open the chest, statues come alive to defend it, yada yada. So what?" He bent down and heaved the lid off with one mighty shove.

The statues didn't move an inch. However, each emitted a loud twang and Gorfang felt a corroded bronze dart tear into his back. Shrugging off the fairly minor wound, the orc peered into the chest. Lying inside was a plain copper headband, some gold in the remains of a leather pouch, and two dusty lumps that turned out to be pearls.

Eloy and Lynien showed up at this point, and the companions divided up by lots the items they felt were probably magical. Gorfang got the ring, which - rather to his surprise - fitted on one of his huge fingers. Cheiron got the headband, but decided it didn't suit him and gave it to Lynien who put it on in place of her own. The tiefling also took the gold and the pearls as no-one else seemed interested in them.

Encouraged, the companions made a more thorough search of this room in case there was more loot going. They didn't find anything, but in the process it struck Gorfang that he could now understand the Krultac writings on the walls of the room. Mostly holy quotes to do with Shushkrah, but one large section of writing declared this to be The Offering Room. Connecting this to the ring, he turned to Lynien and asked her to write something in another language.

With a disquieting grin, the tiefling took out a scrap of parchment and scribbled a few lines in Abyssal and handed it to him. He read it easily, and asked her to say something in the same language. She did, and a moment later they were conversing in the Demontongue.

Returning to the place where the spiders had attacked Lynien, the party cleared a path through the webs filling the room without incident, eyeing the anonymous webbed lumps of the spiders' previous meals warily. At the far side of the room, they found stone stairs leading down.

After about 30' of descent, the steps ended in an archway leading into a small room. The arch was white marble, once inlaid and decorated with silver runes - some of which remained - but had been battered, smeared with blood and desecrated with symbols in a different language. Rather to his disappointment, Gorfang realized he couldn't read these... the Translator's Ring had its limits.

Lynien signalled for a halt, gazing at the symbols on the arch. There was nothing specific she could point out, but her trained instincts were thrumming - there was danger here. While she was still considering how she could disarm the trap, Gorfang shrugged and stepped through.

Instantly, the charcoaled runes blazed red, and a blast of red energy flashed. The orc leaped forward, escaping the worst, but was still painfully burned.

The others shuffled, unsure if they fancied the idea of being next through the arch. There was a pause, and then Eloy gave Bog a hard shove, sending him tumbling down the stairs and through the archway to sprawl at Gorfang's feet. Nothing else happened.

Bog looked up at the orc and chuckled. "You on fire!" he squeaked. "You hurt, need Boom-Boom?" Gorfang nodded and Bog passed him a flask, which the orc knocked back; his wounds vanished, and he felt warmed and invigorated - mainly from the fine spirits that Bog use as the matrix for Boom-Boom.

Clearly the trap was discharged, so the others descended the stairs, except for Cheiron who remained just behind the arch, an excellent supportive archery position, his bow to hand.

The room was clearly empty, but a passage led on northwards, doubtless to more adventure and treasure. Peering down it, the party became aware that they could hear sounds. Some of them had heard them earlier, and recognized the approach of spiders of considerable size without pleasure.

Eloy readied his bow and Gorfang reached for some oil and a tindertwig, while Lynien stepped to the north wall and stood just at the edge of the doorway, ready to flank anything that came through. A few moments later, they saw what it was.

The creatures looked like spiders ... but there was something missing. It took a moment, but then they realized that these spiders had nothing between the hard parts of their shells. They were nothing but carapaces ... undead spider exoskeletons. Lynien stared. "Who the hells animates dead spiders?" she demanded in disgust.

Such questions were for later. Gorfang and Eloy hastily changed weapons, as fire and arrows weren't going to do much against skeletons. Then, with a clicking rush, the spidershells were upon the party.

From his raised position at the rear, Cheiron loosed an arrow. Not only did it completely miss all the spiders, it narrowly missed Gorfang before clattering into a corner. Cheiron stashed his bow and changed his approach.

Eloy and Gorfang stepped up and attacked. Eloy's sword cut bits off his spider, although not as effectively as it would have used on a fleshly target. Gorfang's 'star, however, proved most effective; his first blow sent the spidershell tumbling backwards down the corridor, though his face fell a bit when it promptly got up and charged back into the fray.

Lynien stepped neatly up behind her spider and - for the first time - drew the dagger she'd got from the tomb of the lizardman hero. She almost forgot what she was doing at the sight of it; instead of a metal blade, it had a blade-like mass composed of what looked like thick smoke. Hoping for the best, she struck - as was her way - from behind, splitting off one of the spider's legs.

And vanished.

Engaged though they were, the others stared in shock. Had the spider done this? Where was she? Shaking off their surprise, they returned to the fight.

Gorfang and Eloy redoubled their efforts and bashed more bits off their two spiders. A moment later, Lynien reappeared, right where she had been, and struck her spider again it appeared to have lost track of her location - before disappearing once more.

Then Cheiron charged down the stairs. Thundering through the battle between Eloy and Gorfang, he lashed out left and right with his spear and sickle, smashing great showers of bone fragments out of both spiders, and was gone, the momentum of his charge carrying him off down the passage until he could stop, turn, and come back.

The battle continued....

[I hate stopping mid-battle, but time had caught up with us and I was starting to make mistakes... All right, more mistakes than usual then]