Idalium Game 88: Along Came a Spider

Session date: Monday, January 8, 2018
Game date: Saturday, March 13, 210

PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35651/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17388/20000   
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6233/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5570/8000

Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5893/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2787/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 606/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1360/2400

In just over a week (game time) it would be time for the annual auction of esoteric and magical artifacts. The adventurers had a mind to sell the strange hidebound book that had come back with them from the dreamlike excursion to Castle Ravenloft. To hopefully spur interest in the book and bolster its selling price, they commissioned a pair of "matching" leather gloves from Elsbeth Finley, a neighborhood leatherworker. She charged them 50 gold darics for the pair, as they would have to be made of an unusual and scarce leather that approximated the unknown covering of the book. After a couple of weeks the gloves were ready, and the party trekked across Idalium to the wealthy quarter, to deliver the book and gloves to Lord Runcible at Runcible Trading House, the co-organizers (along with the Adventurer's Guild) of the auction. Lord Runcible heard the story of Gulleck and Caryatid about how the book held significant power and danger, as it could strike a person down if handled without gloves. He raised an eyebrow skeptically when they told him it came from another realm, but accepted it into the auction anyway.

Back at the Rusty Lantern, Heady (the animated wooden face hacked out of a door) greeted them jovially and asked if they had heard the latest gossip in the Adventurer's Guild: Rugger's Raiders had undergone some upheaval, and was now being led by the elf Moonpetal. In fact, they were now calling themselves "Moonpetal's Marauders".

"I don't know what happened to him, but Rugger is totally whipped by that scrawny elf! Hoo-boy!"

This unsettled the adventurers greatly, as last they knew, Moonpetal had parted company with Rugger and was taking some time off "to find himself". They were deeply suspicious that something had gone wrong in the pool of resurrection, as usual...

They bought a few gems from a jeweler who was hanging out at the bar, to take to the talking stone pillar down on the third level, and then descended into the dungeon. But when they got down to the third level, who should they find in the first room at the bottom of the stairs but Rugger's Raiders, er, Moonpetal's Marauders! Moonpetal was clearly the same elf that they had seen last month, but his entire composure was transformed. He was haughty and arrogant, and Rugger had lost his brash presence and seemed meek and humble.

"Oh, hi, Gulleck!" waved Rugger with a dopey smile. "Are you exploring this level too?" It soon became obvious to the party that Moonpetal's magical duplicate (Caryatid immediately dubbed him "Moonloaf") had charmed his entire party (much as the magic-user Silvana had done to his original) and taken command of the group. He expressed annoyance and hurt that the adventurers had just left him in the resurrection pool. From his perspective, they went into the room and he entered the pool to heal his palpitating heart, and when he emerged from the soothing waters, the chamber was empty. He had crept out into the dark hallway and made his way back to his sleeping comrades, and returned alone to the surface. He accessed their treasure vault in the Rusty Lantern and seized all of the party treasure and then over the next week he researched the Charm Person spell. Then he tracked down Rugger and charmed him. The rest of the party didn't seem to care who their leader was; it seemed they didn't actually like Rugger all that much.

Moonpetal's group haughtily took their leave of the Infestation Managers and headed upstairs, while the party headed south to visit "the judge", the talking stone pillar of impossibly many faces. They fed him five ornamental stones worth 10 gp each, which he wolfed down like some demented Cookie Monster.

"More, more!" he cried hungrily, and Gulleck gave him a slightly more expensive gem worth 30 gp. The pillar still seemed unsatisfied, and Simon asked if he knew where they could find more gems, or treasure in general.

"There are ratmen to the north. I'm sure they have a great deal of treasure, and from what I'm told, they also like shiny things. And then there are the people in the black cloaks to the west. They are always buying and selling food, and weapons, and... things. So they must have some wealth to speak of."

Well, the group didn't feel up to tangling with either the wererats or the cultists today, so they decided to head back upstairs and see if the big snakepit in the orcs'/goblins' apartment complex led anywhere. They made their way to the apartments, last occupied by the Goblin Prince and his goblins, but when they entered the courtyard, they found it was lit by torches carried by a number of the cultists. They wore their customary black cloaks over plate mail and disturbing goat head amulets around their necks. They were led by the dark-haired witch known as Ms. Frost, whom the adventurers had met before. She looked at them sourly.

"Oh, it's you. We heard someone wiped out the Goblin Prince" - ("Yeah, that was us," interjected Simon) - "so we came to see if there we could collect any... useful materials. But it looks like other scavengers got here before us. Come on, everyone, let's go." And she led her party of cultists past the adventurers and out of the courtyard.

The adventurers climbed up onto the wooden stage and examined the lever next to the Goblin Prince's throne. Gulleck pulled it and a trapdoor dropped open several feet in front of the throne. Simon peered down into the hole with his sword, and saw that the stage was covering the snake pit. All that was left of the giant pythons that had occupied this pit were two large skeletons, clad in tattered remnants of snakeskin and rotten bits of overlooked snakeflesh. Scattered throughout the rubble and bones Simon could see the glittering of hundreds of silver and gold coins. But moving amongst the bones and rubble was something else as well, three enormous hairy spiders! Their bodies were at least as wide as a man was tall. They noticed Simon's light and reached towards him, stretching upwards with their front legs, but fortunately they were too far below to reach him. Simon decided to use his animal control ring on the spiders, but was surprised that it was unable to get any grip on their minds. He took the ring off again, and the spiders eventually grew bored with him and shuffled off into the darkness.

They tried to hatch a plan: they would lure the spiders back into the space under the trapdoor by dropping some planks hacked free of the wooden platform, and then Orin would cast his Sleep spell on them. This mostly worked: they dropped some planks into the pit, and two spiders crept forward to investigate. Orin cast his spell, and one of the spiders went limp and slumped onto the ground. The other retreated back into the dark. Then the plan turned weird. Orin was ordered to descend into the pit with one foot on a loop at the bottom of a rope anchored to the throne, one hand holding the rope, and the other hand carrying a loaded crossbow and ready to shoot any spider that approached. But then the two enormous spiders, wider than he was tall, lunged out of the dark at his, mandibles snapping and clacking. His crossbow bolt went wild into the dark, and then one of the spiders sank its fangs into him, killing him instantly. He let go of the rope and fell to the bottom of the pit.

Caryatid cast her Sleep spell, putting one of the spiders to sleep. Gulleck decided to go for broke, and dropped through the trapdoor with her axe held over her head, trying to fall onto the remaining spider and sink her axe into its thorax. Unfortunately, her player rolled a 1, and so she missed the spider completely and hit the rubble and snake bones hard, taking 5 hit points of damage, and to make matters worse she fell on her own axe, taking a further 10 points. For a lesser dwarf (or human) this would have been enough to kill them several times over, but as a level 6 dwarf, Gulleck was able to roll as she fell and luckily convert a fatal impaling into a mere flesh wound.

Up above, worried faces peered through the trapdoor, as Caryatid cast a Magic Missile at the spider before it could finish Gulleck off. She rolled the big green d30 and did 15 hp damage, and then Meat rolled a natural 20 for his bow, firing an arrow directly into one of the eyes of the spider. It squealed in pain and rage. Gulleck tried to defend herself but rolled a 1 (again!) and got her axe tangled in the snake bones, but she pulled it free as the spider lunged around blindly, and then plunged the axe into the abdomen of the beast. Ichor spewed forth and the spider collapsed in a twitching pile. She killed the two sleeping spiders, and then brutally hacked the head off of one, intending to clean it out and wear it as a decorative helmet accessory.

Gulleck collected the scattered coins, and then Orin's body was tied to the rope and hauled back out of the snake pit. Then they carried him to the resurrection pool, where he was revived. Curiously, as he climbed out of the pool, he found himself uncontrollably twitching spasmodically in a rhythmic fashion for a few seconds. This passed quickly, though, and the group quickly made their way back out of the dungeon with their loot.