Session 17

=June 21st, 2018 - The Spider Men=

Caravan Day 36, The Spider Men
The session began three days after Rachen began taking care of one of Beyd Sechepool’s horses. After two days the horse was back helping to pull the merchant’s wagon. The caravan was now in the thick of the Fog Forest, where the road was getting thinner and the woods towered over both sides. Most unsettling was the appearance of webbing among the trees and bushes a day ago. On this day, the webbing had gotten thick high above in the branches, and even more appeared along the underbrush. The sounds of the forest had slowly died away, and the horses were skittish.

The only indication the party had before the attack was one of the horses jerked quickly to the side at some unheard sound. Then, from both sides of the road giant spiders leapt from the brush or dropped from the trees and attacked the caravan. Just behind them, spider like humanoids standing on two legs known as ettercaps emerged. While some of these monstrosities joined in the attack, others focused their attention on horses. The caravan was once again engaged in battle along its entire line, with the rearguard party focused on fighting four giant spiders and three ettercaps.

The fighting was intense, but only lasted a few dozen seconds. During the course of the battle, both Lachlan and Thia fell unconscious from the spider’s poison, yet both survived. As the giant spiders and some ettercaps distracted the defenders, the remaining ettercaps eventually snapped the ropes free of a few horses and led them away into the woods. The party saw two such horses be taken from the rear of the caravan. After the retreating ettercaps had disappeared into the woods, what few spider monsters remained fled into the forest after them.

Many were wounded, but no members of the caravan had died. However, four horses were lost, leaving three wagons stranded. The members of the caravan all just wanted to keep moving along and were in a slight panic as to how to proceed without leaving wagons stranded. Rachen declared ‘his’ horse could pull a stranded wagon instead of Beyd’s load. Beyd’s wagon was the traveling ale and wine wagon, and now more than halfway through the journey was about half empty. The party suggested that since the load was so light, Beyd’s second horse could also pull a stranded wagon and the caravan could carry what remained of the alcohol load.

The party and many of the caravan agreed and basically stole from Beyd whatever alcohol remained. Some of the caravan merchants and travellers paid Beyd, but many, including the party, did not. Beyd’s two bodyguards stood by and let this all happen, knowing it was not only prudent but a smart decision. For the remaining two stranded wagons, the other merchant who still had two horses pulling their load offered up their second horse. Finally, Rhogar came up with the idea of lashing rope together to pull the final horseless wagon, and other wagon owners offloaded what they could from this wagon.

Caravan Day 43, Oathbreaker
Almost a tenday later the caravan had finally moved out of the densest parts of the Fog Forest, and began passing by farming villages once more. In the middle of the forty third day of the journey as the caravan rounded a bend in the road an object could be seen sticking out of the middle of the road about a hundred yards away. As the group approached, Thia declared it was a humanoid head. The caravan came to a stop as members came to the front to witness what the cause of the commotion was. It was a sun bruised human male, with the words ‘Oathbreaker’ painted across his forehead.

Recent travel tracks could be seen in the road going around the head on both sides. Some travelers of the caravan were saying if others had passed him by, so should they. “If someone went to the trouble to bury him and paint Oathbreaker, he probably deserves what he’s getting”. However, members of the party gave the wounded man water, and asked him his story. The man gave his name as Carlon, and described how he broke a promise to marry a girl once he found out her father and brother were bandits, and were going to force him to join them. They discovered his intentions on the road, and left him for dead.

While it was clear to some in the party this man was not telling the whole truth, they went ahead and dug him out anyway. In doing so, Thia noticed among tattoos on his arms, a Dominion of Druids symbol on his left shoulder. She didn’t say anything about it then. The group gave the man some rations, and he slowly began walking along with the caravan.

Caravan Day 50, Crystalford
About a week after the Oathbreaker joined their caravan, it finally pulled into the town of Crystalford, the last major settlement before the metropolis of Ironbay. The wealthiest among the caravan took up lodgings in inns within the town, while most camped in one of the caravan campgrounds. The next morning, when they departed the town, the party was surprised by one of the newcomers. Travellers came and left the caravan at almost every stop and large village they passed through, for the protection of the group. However, not once was a traveller welcomed aboard one of the cult wagons, not until this day.

The male human welcomed aboard the cult wagon was wearing a black robe and had a shaved head. On his forehead was a strange tattooed symbol, and he spoke to no one other than his wagon fellows. The second newcomer turned out to be even more interesting. A suspicious female halfling in dark traveling leathers joined as a foot traveller, but seemed most interested in the black robed man. She kept an inconspicuous distance from him and his wagon at all times, but was still close enough to overhear any discussions.

The first day of travel out of Crystalford took the caravan over the Crystal River, and from here on until Ironbay was farmland and villages as far as could be seen. After two days of travel, it was clear the female halfling continued to casually hang around the black robed man’s campfire or wagon, and was clearly following him. Even more interesting, a few of the party had noticed that while they were watching her, she noticed their glances and was watching them in return.

The session ended there, on the fifty second day of the caravan journey, which is the seventy first day since the raid on Greenest. The caravan is less than a tenday away from its destination of Ironbay.

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