====== More Spiders Than You Can Shake A Tentacle At =====

It almost looked as though things were going well until one managed to bite deeply into my leg, and a feeling like ice poured into my veins, and soon after that green pest bit into Dekkon, and I could see the poison mottling his features and drawing him towards death, the shield drooping at his side, his sword beginning to slip. My vision was starting to swim as I murmured a prayer...

"Pelor of the sun,
Who shines through the darkest fog,
Whose heat warms even the dimmest caves,
Whose fires shine through the brightest darkness,
Purify with fire and light!"

When I was a very young boy, I had wondered at the miracles that men and women of power could exert in the name of purpose. As I studied under the tutelage of the holy of Pelor, I learned to embrace the feeling of warmth - the sign that the divine Power was watching, and that through me, his will would be channeled. My holy symbol erupted into flame, and the numbing feeling that was making my fingers fumble disappeared, warmth shooting up my arm and driving away the numbness. Before me, the spider that had bitten Dekkon exploded in a burst of holy fire, and in the light of the flames, Dekkon's injuries receded and the look of death left his face, and the strength returned. Rejuvenated, he surged forth, striking into the green beast, and putting a hand on my shoulder to give me strength. It twitched and spasmed and attempted to get back to its feet before one last blast from Vash brought the beast down. We rallied then, and hacked our way through the last of the spiders.

Twelve in total, these strange beasts numbered, plus the unlucky thirteen of the large green beast that had done such damage to life and limb. We took a long look around at the remnants of the battle - spiders twitching in their death throes, our three fallen companions, the place where our packmule and supplies had been (and presumably had fled); and we took to the grim work of checking bodies and ensuring that spiders stayed dead. Sammeas and Haran were not breathing, and Durn was struggling for breath, a mere hairs-breadth from death's door. There wasn't much time...

Fortunately, perhaps, our encounter had taken place near lush, swampy grasses that were perfect for what I was looking for. Waspbane, a green fern useful against infection and good at treating wounds in general; sacrose grass, a grass with yellow flowers and a pungent, spicy scent, valued by kings and workmen alike who have reason to fear poison; and ordinary reeds, with hollow tubes sturdy enough to be used to keep the airway clear. I'd heard of the procedure I was about to attempt once before, from when my teacher had himself been young; in order to save a man suffering from a sickness against which prayers had little effect, they had inserted a hollow reed down his throat, carefully, so that it would not close up and stop him from breathing. Dekkon helped hold Durn in place as I inserted the tube, and within moments, his strangled breathing eased. Waspbane and sacrose grass are both plants which are crushed - in a mortar and pestle ideally, though in hand in a pinch - and while they are best taken orally, rubbing them directly into the wounds is also proven to work. Within minutes, Durn looked better -- he was still unconscious, and still very sick, but at least we had pulled him back from the brink. I tried to repeat the procedure on the others, in case they weren't quite past saving... but to no avail. There are some things that are well beyond my grasp.

While I was working on this, Vash and Kiendra had time to examine the corpses of our enemies more carefully. As Kiendra pointed out, while the giant brown spiders were occasionally seen in caves - and the black ones as a very rare thing - seeing a dozen of them attacking in unison in broad daylight was an incredibly rare thing, and never had she seen a green spider of any sort in this territory. Vash's inspection was equally enlightening - his mage's senses detected traces of some sort of magical compulsion on the corpse, and of enchantments placed on the emerald beast to make it larger and more savage than is natural. Something was very wrong here.

After some discussion, we agreed that the wisest option might be to find a defensible place to rest and recover. Our options at this point were harshly limited - our supplies were gone, two were dead and one was fallen, and all of us were wounded besides. Dekkon laid his cloak over the dead, as we had neither the time nor the strength to bury them, and we chose to head for the rocks to find a better place to survey the territory from. The feeling that we were being watched was strong, and eventually, Dekkon pointed out the source - a dwarf in gray armor crouched against the rocks, a crossbow pointed in our direction, and one who did not seem happy to see us. Clearly, he was from Flintburn.

We explained our reason for being there - and pointed out the crazed spider swarm fifty feet north. Dekkon explained that we actually were looking for the Flintburns to deliver a warning, while Kiendra muttered something to the tune of "I ain't offering to blow him if it comes down to that. You're going to have to get the elf to do that." Vash was not amused. Fortunately, the dwarf in question seemed willing to at least listen to what we had to say - and introduced himself as Marduk. He didn't seem to be too inclined to believe us when we explained that we were here to warn of an upcoming orcish incursion - and who could blame him for being dubious? - but perhaps fortunately, we were interrupted by more spiders. Perhaps more fortunately, Marduk seemed just as intent at shooting at the spiders as we were at fighting them off... who says that violence isn't the diplomatic solution?

Fortunately, no more of those green pests emerged - however, there were still plenty of spiders, rushing out of the treeline across the nearby stream, stampeding across the log bridge. Vash got it into his head that the best solution might be to run over to shove the log into the water so the spiders couldn't cross; this might have been wiser if he had been more capable of dodging the spiders that had already crossed the bridge, or if he had been strong enough to dislodge the log in the first place, or if a blue tentacular thing hadn't burst from the water and promptly latched onto Vash, attempting to haul him into the river. He managed to escape, and the horrific kelpy beast had to settle for pulling in two of the spiders that had been attempting to cross to feast upon instead. Spiders continued to swarm from the webbing across the stream, though; while Kiendra moved over to keep the tentacled thing at bay and kick the log into the stream - giving the tentacled beast a lovely meal to focus on, and cutting off their main line of approach - and Vash set the webbing on the other side ablaze, cutting off the point they were emerging from, as the rest of us dealt with the spiders that had crossed over. After a moment of mutual silence as we regarded the corpses and each other, Marduk agreed that perhaps it was worth taking us to see the chief. "Anybody who sees to spiders like that can't be all bad, I reckon." Dekkon picked up Durn, and we proceeded into the caves.