"Waaay too many legs." She answers, fighting a chill running along her spine. She shakes her kukri once to get the goo out of it before sheathing it. "How you doing, Betz? I've got some antivenom with me."
The last spider spasms and curls up in death.
As things go quiet after the brief flash of violence, everyone can hear Emerald as she mutters something over and over again. Her eyes are closed as she holds her bow tight and rests her forehead against it.
Betzolte tromps up to Emerald and gives her a gentle pat on the back.
"Waaay too many legs." She answers, fighting a chill running along her spine. She shakes her kukri once to get the goo out of it before sheathing it. "How you doing, Betz? I've got some antivenom with me."
She shakes her head and offers a weak smile.
"Nay, it didn't get a good enough bite on me to inject any venom. Killed it before that happened. But thanks!"
Emerald starts at Grobradon's thanks. Her face is pale and her pupils are narrow slits when here eyes snap open and fix on him. She calms down for a moment, pointedly not looking at the corpses of the spiders, before speaking.
"H-Happy to help," she says in a small voice. "Th-that's what I'm supposed to say, right?"
Betzolte shrugs.
"Well, it's one thing you can say. Only time there's something you're supposed to say is if you're casting a spell or you're praying."
Moon cleans her blade and resheathes it before picking up her bow and knocking another arrow.
”Don’t worry about venom. These are giant wolfspiders, who hunt by pouncing on prey and biting rather than through webs and poison. I suspect their presence means that we’re getting close to the Manylegs camp”
Maidie floats down to check on her friends, then flies up among the branches again to do a circular sweep for more spiders or goblin scouts.
"Betz, you got a potion or need me to use one of my spells?"
”Spells first, if we got them. Or the wand Prince Kernan gave us. Save the potions for emergencies”
Emerald jumps at Betzolte's pat on the back. She gives a jerky nod of her head to acknowledge what the dwarf tells her, but one would have to be blind to not see that Emerald is indeed terrified of spiders.
Seeing the wounds on Betzolte's arm and hearing Maidie's advice, however, the dragon girl frowns and spends the next minute or so healing the dwarf up and cleaning up the mess left behind. Soon, other than a slight tenderness where Betzolte had been bitten, it looks like nothing has happened at all.
Once Emerald is done taking care of Betzolte's wound, Erigga waves at her. "So... you think they are scary, uh? If I'm being honest, I also feel the same and to make it worse these crawlers are twice my size." Despite her words, Erigga is crouching by one of them, poking it with a piece of wood.
Emerald shudders as she sees Erigga poking at one of the dead spiders with a stick. She looks away, her face pale, as she replies.
"I-I-I'm t-t-terrified of spiders, and-and n-n-not just the big ones," she admits.
Grobradon sees the healing is handled, and shrugs "Guess we're all scared of something." He ponders Maidie's words, "Yeah, probably closing in. Gonna be hard to sneak in if they have web spinning spiders. Slightest vibrations and all that. Try not to walk into any webs for more reasons that just the discomfort."
"Thank you, Emerald," Betzolte says warmly. About the fear of spiders, she says nothing.
Betzolte shifts her grip on her axe a bit, readying herself for the next stage of the battle.
Emerald nods at Betzolte while trying not to think too much about what Grobradon said. His words prove prophetic as the closer you get to the camp, the more webs and stray strands of silk you find. The gloom grows deeper as the underbrush grows more twisted, gnarled, and thorny. At first, it seems natural, but as you travel deeper, the thorns grow long and sharp as daggers, making passage through them nearly impossible. Even those blessed by the Green would find the way difficult as anywhere not bristling with wicked thorns is covered in webbing.
The most unnerving part, however, is the eerie silence. Even the smallest noise seems a cacophonous clamor and any temptation to talk is squashed by the oppressive weight of the freezing air under the boughs of this section of the Fangwood.
It is nearly noon, though time is difficult to gage in the sunless realm under the Fangwood's canopy, when the path dead-ends into what seems to another some distance ahead.
It all smelled like a trap. But unless they wanted to retreat then try to approach the camp from another (hopefully unguarded) angle, their choices were limited.
Moon shoulders her bow then draws her curve blade.
”Going in blind is a bad idea. I can turn invisible and scout the camp from the air. I’ll need to be quick, but even a brief look will give us a big advantage.” Maidie says, considering their options.
”Alternatively, we could move carefully forward and then use a summoned creature to trigger their trap.”
"I can wildshape if you want?"
Betzolte lowers to a ready stance and grips her axe.
"Yeah, just be careful not to get webbed. They probably made sure to set something like that up to keep eyes in the sky away."
Erigga nods, uncomfortable with the idea, but not having a better one.
Emerald nods as well, Maidie's plan seeming about as sounds as they are likely to get.
Grobradon waits and watches.
Looking around, you see that this place is infested with spiders. From the small, venomous ones to the shadows of truly giant spiders that prowl through the trees. They avoid the cleared paths, but anything that ventures beyond them is likely to draw their attention.
Just at the edge of your hearing is the sound of goblins chattering. It's too far to make out much, but apparently something is going on with the Stickfoot tribe from what you can gather. They sound more annoyed than nervous, though.
After turning invisible, you flit down the path and find that it does go further in both directions. Down the eastern path, you hear a group of goblins chattering. They are no sounds coming from the western path. Above, however, you hear a soft chittering sound. Barely a foot from you, above the webs and branches that form the ceiling of the path, is a giant spider, easily ten feet across. It looks around, confused, as its mandibles open and close in a strange, synchronous motion.
"lots of spiders, obviously," He whispers "If it wasn't so dangerous I'd wonder if there were some way to smoke em out."
After using her magic hat to turn invisible, Maidie flies forward, hoping the soft wirr of her wings won’t give her away.
At the intersection, she pauses for a moment to consider the large spider and decide which way to fly next.
This spider is one of the hunting ones. It doesn't seem to notice you specifically while it does appear to be looking for something. You get the feeling that if you were in among the webs it would be much, much harder to hide from it. Taking a closer look at the foliage in your observations, you see that it is unnaturally thick and covered in thorns. Perhaps Grobradon has some insight on that. In any case, it would seem that the trails through this section of the Fangwood are not the game trails that you and the others have been using, but passages cut through a defensive hedge.
The sounds of goblin chatter come from the eastern passage while silence greets you from the west. The spider moves on after a few more tense moments, though other shadows above provide a reminder of the dangers lurking about.
"At least we don't have to worry about venom from those giant spiders" Maidie thinks to herself, then turns towards the path with the goblins.
With a quick mental calculation, she determines how far she can fly down that path and still have enough invisibility left to return to the rest of the group. Like a ghost, she glides forward, her senses peeled to register as much information as possible during her short scouting flight.
Meanwhile, as the others wait for Maidie to return, Emerald slides between Betzolte and Grobradon. The pair of them can hear the young dragon turned human whimpering softly as her eyes dart about.
Grobradon isn't sure what to say. Suck it up comes to mind but that's not productive. Encouraging whimpering also seems bad.
"Hold tight, Songbird. We're all in the eye of the storm with you."
"Aye, Betzolte adds, shifting her grip on her axe a little. "And we'll weather it together."
Emerald nods, not trusting her voice. She's still obviously terrified, but at least the whimpering has stopped.
Maidie returns without incident a moment later to relay what she's found. Now, the Heroes of Kassen are faced with a choice, attack the goblins an alert more of the green-skinned runts or sneak around the other way to see what lay there.
Information gathered and enemies spotted, the Heroes of Kassen silently move deeper into the tangled heart of the forest. Thankfully, the spiders moving in the shadows seem to take no notice of you. The four goblins remain oblivious to your presence. Two of them watch and make bets as it appears the other two across the small spring are about to come to blows over which of two goblin women has the better assets.
Grobradon casts guidance on himself as he readies his sling and holds his action just long enough to fire at which ever enemy gets wounded first by one of his team mates. He figures reducing their numbers FAST is better than just wounding a lot of them.
Moon creeps forward as far as she dares before firing an arrow at the goblin.
Arrows (45): xxxx
Blunts (45): x
Iron Arrows (3):
Lead Blades (1):
Hero Points (3):
Kassen Battle Boon: 1x
Kassen Death Boon: 1x
Lead Blades – Rnd x of 10 – all my melee weapons act as one size larger
Histya slinks forward one paw at a time, ears back, tail tip twitching only fractionally.
After making it safely back, Maidie gives a short and precise report about what she has seen.
"We must move swiftly and try to get as close to the main camp before the alarm is raised. Unlike our previous battles, we need to conserve our resources. The first group should not give us much trouble, but I suspect there is a battle singer further along. And the strange plant growth indicates that they have help from a druid or fey."
Intent on eliminating the first group of guards quickly, Maidie relies on the flawless accuracy of her magic missile wand.
Betzolte strides forward, hefting her axe with a bellowing battlecry.
"COME AND !"
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Erigga follows Betz, hoping the enemies get her instead. Despite Betz' bravado, twice she had gotten got.
Blue Goblin: 7 damage
Yellow Goblin: 0 damage
Moon's arrow takes out the throat of her target while Maidie's magic blows apart the ribcage of the goblin closest to the path continuing on. Grobradon's strike causes a third goblin to stagger as the last stares at its dying fellow in disbelief.
"Well done! Keep pushing forward - don’t let them recover!" Maidie says as she swoops ahead to keep pace with Betz and Erigga.
Leveling her wand at the goblin furthest away, she unleashes another wolley of arcane force.
Wasting no time, Erigga charges the farthest goblin. Normally she cares more about her defense, but she had learned the power of surprise and she'd take advantage of it.
plus
Another goblin drops, it's blood spilling into the spring as it dies, leaving just one goblin alive. While goblins are not known for their common sense, they are not entirely insane, and the last one takes off for the passage leading away from the dangerous party that has just so effectively killed its fellow goblins.
Grobradon curses as one is getting awway and chases and flings a sling at it "Damn it, that one will sound the alarm."
(Move and sling)
Sadly for Grobradon, the goblin is wise to his skill with a sling and ducks the stone hurtling at its head.
While Erigga believes Moon and Maidie will be able to finish the fleeing goblin from afar, she doesn't like to take chances. She charges the enemy again. "No running away..."
plus
The last goblin opens its mouth to shout a warning as it sees Erigga rushing up behind it to finish it off. It's warning dies as a soft gurgle as its longs fill with blood and are seared by the acid from the halfling's knife. As the thundering of her heartbeat lessens, she can hear a goblin singing further ahead.
"So far, so good...let's push on quickly. Moon, perhaps you and Histya had better take point and see if you can get the drop on the singer" Maidie says quietly as she glides up next to Erigga.
Erigga nods, agreeing with the plan. After Moon takes point, she follows as silently as possible.
Grobradon hastily loots spare ammo off a goblin or two then hurries to catch up. Before this is done they may need such.