Fortune favors the crew as they resist every malady that comes their way. Dingus continues wriggling in the webbing, but without the threat of a big spider, he maintains his focus and sends a volley of vapor viper at the cultists. The duplicate image bursts like a bubble as the first missile hits and the rest sink into the beaky bad guy.
Dibbets follows up with a pointblank blast, but Dingus' bumps the halfling with his frenzied wiggling and the shot misses. Kaul has no problem splitting a Big Old Scary Spider like a giant pumpkin.
The webs overhead finish burning leaving only a few glowing filaments in the void of the collapsed room above. The spider-faced woman retreats from Kaul's axe by throwing her robe over her head as she completes her transformation into a big spider with a strange bulge on her back. She scampers away up the wall about fifteen feet toward the charred webs.
Jim turns to face the cultist, tsking and shaking his head. "You know, mate, were you a bit wiser you'd realize you're walking dead right now."
His first strike sends the cultist's weapon flying, but he can't quite tag the foe on the backswing.
Corliss summons up his courage and heads north to battle the nearest remaining spider, stabbing at it with his enchanted rapier.
for
Corliss advances north along the web-shrouded wall and encounters another monstrous spider. Although of similar size, it is doesn't bear the red markings and horny carapace of the others. Instead, it is a dusky gray color with a humped back. It has also has an unusual intelligence in its actions as it dodges Corliss' clumsy slash and shoots a stream of web to catch the sailor. Corliss' stumble saves him as the web shoots past, but it also causes him to brush the envenomed webs on the wall as he recovers.
Disarmed, the masked cultist reaches out to touch Jim, but the nimble swordsman easily avoids the bad touch and the cultists steps back toward the door to the lab,
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Escape Artist
"Richard Help! Eat some of these webs or something".
Having already stretched the webs with his constant struggling, Dingus finally wiggles free of the webbing.
Corliss's bad day (Week? Month? Existence?) continues as he brushes against some tainted webbing and begins to doubt that his goddess still has his back.
Dibbets busies himself with re-stuffing shot and powder into his wood and iron instrument of cacophony and chaos.
His bloody dander up, Kaul charges across the room and engages another of the Eight Legged Freaks
Dingus restuffs his shot. Corliss looks a bit nervous after his brush with the webbing against the walls. Kaul rushes to his side and Lopper lands with a spray of spider fluids.
Corliss gets showered with spidery ichor thanks to Kaul's (sorry...Lopper's) mighty blow. Blinking, the Besmaran tries to jab the tip of his rapier home on the same target. The results--or lack thereof--are predictable....
for
Jim pursues the disarmed cultist, blade flashing. It tangles in the shreds of web, though, and his target gets a chance to take another breath.
Corliss flinches from the gore rather than pressing his attack and Jim is hindered by sheets of webbing dislodged by the smoldering fire above. The cultists are dwindling though. The masked one continues his retreat, ducking behind the doorframe and withdrawing back through the next room. The spider thing that was wounded by Kaul shifts up the wall just out of reach and making ritual motions with is appendages sends the ghostly hand at Kaul. It hits with a flash as electricity courses through the thug.
Free of his bindings Dingus steps forward and throws a fan of flames out at the spider thing (DC15 for half).
Flickering Snake tongues
Dingus coughs up a little blood after casting the spell.
"Tired... so tired..."
Dingus moves up between the lab tables and sends flames at the closest spider creature catching it in the conflagration.
Kaul's teeth rattle from the electrical jolt and his eyes smolder as he swings Lopper high at the offending arachnid-thing lopping a couple limbs off.
Dibbets takes a shot at Kaul's target as well, but the combination of dim light, haze, and drifting webbing obscure the shot which misses.
The badly wounded creature above Kaul skitters slightly higher and out of reach as it waves its stumps and sends a trio of purple force darts into the thug.
Corliss
Jim
Cultists
Absent any foes in his immediate vicinity, Jim crosses the room to Kaul's side and stabs at the floating hand. He skids on a puddle of spider gore on his approach, though, and nearly goes over.
Corliss sees Kaul getting pummeled. Knowing his own shortcomings in melee, the priest opts to channel healing energy, targeting the half-orc. As an afterthought, he also summons a copycat of his handsome self to vex the remaining spiderfolk.
A pair of Corlisses patch up Kaul a bit. Jim has an uncharacteristic slip as he chases the phantom limb. It retreats up and back to the rear of the room where the other spider crouches unmoving, high up the wall, as if in wait.
Kaul mugs a lopsided grin as damage knits and with renewed vigour the scarred brute shifts his axe into the mechanical claw and fishes out one his barbed darts...
"Hur... If I can't Lop ye, then I'll stick ye..."
With a swift flick of his brawny arm, Kaul launches the dart at nearest spider;
"Sneaky wee bastard ain't he?" Dibbs exhorts as he spits a gobbet of phlegm to the side and reloads his musketry.
Dingus tentatively steps closer head on a swivel, the extends a finger and sends forth a green ray which radiates cold where it passes.
Ray of Frost
Cold
"Bout out of power guys. Can I take a nap"?
Flagging from an extended foray against cultists and spiders, the crew launches an ineffective attack against the two remaining spider people that crouch out of reach on the walls. Dingus is down to the dregs of his reserves and reduced to sending frosty beams that do little damage. Kaul's dart skills are rusty and his throw bounces tail first off the wall.
The spiders leap simultaneously at the half-orc rappelling from their webs to land on opposite sides of Kaul. The quick thug dodges one bite, but the other catches his haunch.
Jim takes a quick step towards Kaul, stabbing at the first spider and moving on to the next if the first goes down.
Shuffling ungainly around to true up his shot, the filthy halfling growls "Close yer mouth Kauly, jus in case ye gets some blowback iffin I ken hit tha fecker..." as he squints eye, tenses sphincter and softly squeezes the trigger on his cacophonic symphony of fire, fury and thunder...
Boom (Deadly Aim): for
Corliss takes a stab at the spider-person to his north. "Take that!" he cries as his blade nicks the creature...barely. Unfortunately, he has little strength or conviction behind the stab.
for
Jim gives the nearest spiderwoman a mortal wound followed by Corliss' strike which lacks conviction, but is enough to cause the creature to collapse into unconsciousness. Dibbets scoots up to Dingus' side and fires the musket again. This time he's too close to miss and the shot embeds in the skittery terror's abdomen.
Dingus his head dripping from the weariness, decides that he's all in, and throws forth another Vapor Viper. He gasps as it releases, and a small trickle of serpentine blood trickles from his nostril.
Magic Missile Force Damage
Dingus wobbles on his slippered feet as he pulls from the dregs of his reserves to send a pair of glowing bolts at the remaining spiderkin. The blasts split the carapace, wounding the creature severely. Kaul chuckles as he swings Lopper down for the kill.
The axe evenly divides the octet of eyes on the lumpy head and the creature's legs spasm as they curl inward in its death throes. Everything is still again as the crew listen for the sound of any other guards approaching or fleeing, but all is quiet.
Scruffling under his voice Dibbets shakes his head "Bastards and barnacles, these feckers are intae some weird stuff now eh? Gather in an regroup a tad..." poking at the corpses with the smoking end of his musket before narrowing eyes to see if there's anything worth snaffling before they move onwards.
Turning their attention toward valuables, the crew find nothing of value on the big spiders or spiderfolk. There is a bunch of alchemical equipment about the drug lab, but it all looks pretty fragile.
The three dead cultists each bear the strange beaked masks that protected them from the chemical fumes and a jointed sickle. The each have some coin totaling a sail and 17 skulls. The leader also has a case of vials none of which appear to be shiver. Two hold a blue odorless liquid, two hold a thick clear liquid that smells off and one is amber and smells like medicine.
The crew notices that one of the cultists was the guard that fled with the unconscious gang member. They don't immediately see the captive, but notice that there are several bodies laid out on an old billiard table in the next room.
"Nicely done, mates." Jim takes a look in the other room, alert for moving corpses.
Jim cautiously leads the way into the next room which is lit by a dim lamp. What was once a well appointed recreation room is now what appears to be a makeshift morgue. Between a pair of boarded up windows on the exterior wall, a large portrait of a brooding man looks over what remains of the dilapidated room with apparent distaste.
A couple broken musical instruments lie discarded against the walls and three corpses are laid out on the torn felt of the billiard table. Slightly more unnerving are two more victims, partially cocooned and hanging in the corner.
None of the bodies move, but closer inspection finds that the most recent addition, the pusher that the crew pursued here, yet lives though he is drugged to a catatonic state. Likewise, a check finds that one of the suspended bodies is alive, but paralyzed.
"Mayhaps we ought get these gents down," Corliss suggests, motioning to the cocooned men. "Maybe turn 'em over to the city watch an' let them lads earn their pay an' fight some o' the cultists, eh?"
The Besmaran also casts a detect magic spell and scans the room and whatever passage the crew takes to make their escape from the place.
Corliss checks the next room which is the foyer of the old mansion. Now it is filled with crates of supplies and spider webs. The far side of the room has collapsed. To the right is the main entrance and to the left, double doors lead back to the ruined temple.
Corliss casts a spell to detect magic and gazes around. There is magic here. As he continues to concentrate, the dim light takes on the tint of conjuration magic. It starts to coalesce into a mist before his eyes. The aura is strong and seems to emanate from a more powerful origin in the temple!
Corliss reports his findings to the others, wondering aloud if this might be the origin of the 'mist-webbing' that vexed the crew earlier.
Corliss' suspicions seem confirmed as all can see the ethereal mist filling the room now. The discarded instruments begin plucking discordant notes and the distant sounds of weird piping and chanting are heard. The portrait on the wall now scowls with hatred and its eyes glare at the crew. The sounds grow ever louder until they are echoing in your heads!
"Yeah--might be time to move along," Corliss reiterates.
Straightening from the inspection of the meagre takings with a machine-gun like pop and crackle from his knees and back, Dibbs is overcome with a sudden sense of malevolent disquiet. Dry heaving failing to remove the lingering taint he growls "Feckin picture's puttin on tha evil eye..."
Jim's last meal makes its presence known--first to him, and then to everyone else in the area. "Best we--hwoulp! Grab the guard and go...."
The phantom cacophony rings so loudly inside the crews' noggins that they are forced to squint their eyes in pain and bolt for the way out. Corliss has the wherewithal to grab the drugged thug.
Outside the crumbling mansion, the crew find themselves on the outskirts of Scurvytown. The full moon reveals some rough dirt farms to the east. To the west stands the decorative walls of an Abadarian trading mission that failed and has been ironically converted into a chelish-style gambling hall called the Mouth of Hell. The crew staggers away from the cult lair and toward the water where it is quieter, but foul smelling. When the ringing in their ears finally fades, the crew debate what to do next.
Will Save
Dingus follows the crew out trying to convince Richard to coil himself around his ears to help cut out the sound unsuccessfully. His ears begin to trickle blood in addition to his already flowing nostrils.
^$%&^$*&^% We've been through a lot of #%(*&(* since we've been together, but this is about the most !#^&^(%^#, *&%*&($^& mess I've ever been a part of. I need a (*$(&^$(*& Drink".
Jim nods wordlessly, wiping vomit from his chin.
Dingus demands a drink though he's so wobbly on his feet, he looks ready to keel over in stiff breeze. Likely he'll need to be thrown over someone's shoulder after a half pint just like the drugged man that Corliss is carrying.