Hugo Tuya’s guards have killed a nest of spiders and freed some human prisoners, but in doing so learnt that there is another nest deeper in the forest. They decided to raid that nest and take whatever treasures might be buried in its webs, as well as more spidersilk to sell to the elves. The roster for today’s mission:

  • Bao Tap, human stormcaller
  • Calim “Ambros” Nefari, human rimewarden
  • Itzel, elven astrologer
  • Kyansei of the Eilika Tribe, wildling barbarian
  • Quangbae, human explorer

They helped the humans they had rescued back to the edge of the forest, took a brief break, and returned to the site of the battle to find the next nest.

Strange doings in the nest

They found trails leading into the forest and followed them, tracking old remnants of web and traces of spider’s passing deep into the gloom. They followed this trail for several hours, until they finally reached an area of trees heavily shrouded in old webs, and realized they had reached their goal. In rare gaps between the heavy foliage they could see trails of pink and scarlet across the sky, and the gathering shadows told them they were close to sunset. A bad time to be raiding a spider’s nest, but better to do it now than to retreat in the dark. They moved forward to infiltrate the nest.

As they approached, though, they saw a strange sight: a humanoid figure, shrouded in tattered webs, moving slowly and jerkily around the trees, occasionally stopping and bending over or reaching up to perform some task that looked like it might be cleaning. Confused, two of them moved around the edge of the nest to get a closer view. They approached the humanoid, grabbed it and turned it to face them – revealing a haunted, enslaved human. This person was emaciated and filthy, their clothes tattered and in ruins, their body wrapped in old and filthy webbing. Their face and the parts of their arms which the guards could see were covered in small scars and bites, and as they held the person large spiders emerged from inside the webs, ran across their skin and disappeared back inside the nest, as if they were comfortable on the person’s body. The person moved with a listless, exhausted, zombie like affect, but when the PCs looked in their eyes they could see that they were desperate and terrified. Tears welled up as the person saw them, but they could not move or speak.

As they were trying to speak to the trapped human the spiders emerged, and the battle began.

The redcap

The battle began smoothly enough. Smaller, dog-sized spiders emerged from the webs and attacked the guards who had tried to rescue the enslaved human, but the rest of the team held back and used missile weapons against the spiders. However, things turned vicious quickly when one of the larger spiders emerged, accompanied by a shadowy humanoid figure lurking behind a group of smaller spiders. This thing unleashed a magical blast of venom on the missile-using PCs, doing serious damage on them and forcing them to separate, and as the numbers increased they were forced into melee. Fortunately in this battle Kyansei was not webbed, and was able to battle valiantly against the chitinous horde. As she fought the spiders Calim and Bao Tap attempted to attack the shadowy human. They ran over to confront it and found themselves facing a small, dun-coloured humanoid wearing armour of spidersilk and a hat that had been drenched in blood, now long-dried. It carried a dagger made of a giant spider’s fang, and as they attempted to attack it it cast a spell on them that confused them. Spiders attacked them to defend the creature, and somehow Bao Tap was bitten badly and poisoned, falling unconscious and losing the use of his arm[1]. The spiders were about to overwhelm Calim when Quangbae and Kyansei charged in to his rescue, killing the remaining spiders and then dispatching the red-capped creature before it could use its magic to enslave Calim.

With the death of the larger spider and the red-capped fey thing the battle ended, and peace fell over the shadowed glade. They began to explore for treasure and victims to rescue.

The redcap’s secrets

With the death of the fey creature the human was released from their strange slavery, and collapsed sobbing to their knees. The guards approached to speak to them, and saw hordes of spiders running out from under the webbing – the human had been carrying hundreds of them against their skin inside the webs. Calim administered some basic aid and eventually, when they had sobbed out their relief, the human told them that they (he) had been here as a slave for a year. He and four others had come to the glade guarding an Astrologer, but had been ambushed by the spiders and enslaved by the redcap. One had been killed, the Astrologer had been taken away as a prisoner, and the four surviving guards had been turned into living hosts for the spiders. They moved around the nest cleaning old webs, removing parasites, cleaning up dead bodies, and also serving as hosts for new spiders: the giant spider laid her eggs in the webs wrapped around them and they would serve as food for the newborns until they were too large to be carried. They ate little, but occasionally the redcap would remember them and cast them some offcut from an animal (or a human victim, if it served) for them to eat. As a result they were emaciated near death, exhausted, and permanently and deeply scarred. The guard told them there were three more survivors around the nest, and that the redcap lived in a cave “by the drowning pool”.

They rescued the remaining three servitors, bringing them to the centre of the nest where they gave them some basic medical care, water and food. Then they moved through the nest and down a narrow pathway to the “drowning pool”. They found a reeking pond of stagnant water, full of rotting bodies and surrounded by detritus and bones. On the far side was a small fire with a spit over it, in front of a dark cave mouth decorated with human bones. By now it was growing dark, so they lit torches and entered the cave.

Inside they found the desiccated remains of a human Astrologer, stuck to a wall by strong bonds of webbing. The cave was a mess of filthy rags, discarded bones and rubbish, and various basic belongings. Searching through the belongings they found some basic treasures, a book of faerie lore, and the wizard’s notebook. The first part of this notebook was research and spell notes, indicating that the wizard had come here believing that there were clues to the existence of an ancient god of spiders deep in the forest, which might hold the knowledge of ancient secrets, new magic or items. However, the last 13 pages of the book held crazed writing, just scratchings and mad rantings written on each page under headings listing days: day 1, day 2, day 3. Some of the writing was in a crazed, aggressive, unruly hand, and some of it in the hand of the Astrologer himself. It appeared he had been captured and the redcap had poisoned him and drunk his blood, using some magic to force the Astrologer to write messages in the notebook.

The characters read the notebook, and were deeply disturbed. The redcap had slowly taken the mind of the Astrologer, drowned him in the drowning pool, and kept his body as a keepsake. This creature must be some kind of fey, which lived alongside the spiders. If there was a spider god deep in the forest, was there also a redcap king or elder, capable of enslaving armies to its whims?

They must destroy the god and its fey adviser. But not now. Now, standing in the ruins of the redcap’s lair and surrounded by the horrific ending of the last mission against the spiders, they understood there more urgent task. They rushed outside and grabbed the redcap’s body, dragging it to the pool and submerging it in the pool moments before the last rays of the setting sun faded from the sky. Just in time, they had finished it off. They scoured the nest, took what they could, gathered everything that had belonged to the redcap and dumped it in the webs, then set the whole thing ablaze and fled from the forest.

There were dark beasts in there that needed to be scoured from the earth, but not now. Now they needed to find fresh air under the open sky, bathe in the light of the sunshard and feel the wind on their faces, and retreat from the horrors of blood and poison. There would be a time for killing ancient gods, and they would return to end the blood-slaving beasts of the deep wood, but now they needed to gulp the air and feel the wind on their face, and rejoice in their freedom under the open sky.

Behind them, dark and ancient gods brooded.

fn1: This should be a permanent destruction of the arm but we’re still learning the poison rules and a few confusions with orders of healing spells meant this might not have happened if Calim had known the risks of leaving Bao Tap unhealed, so we decided to make it a temporary problem – once the crit is healed Bao Tap gets his arm back. It’s been deadened by poison.