Post by Dead Greyhawk on Nov 25, 2007 22:25:14 GMT -5
With archers ahead of them, the Company can not afford to dally. They place the freed prisoners as comfortably as they can in the guardroom nearby. The prisoners are marginally better off than they were minutes earlier, their wounds treated and their bodies released from bondage, but it is certain that if the Company does not return, they will suffer once more. With Otto and the archers leading the way, the Company heads up the sloping ramp.
The passage makes a tight turn, as if curving towards the center of the Great Tree. The Company takes the corner very slowly, not wanting to be surprised by an ambush of bugbears. Fortunately, the only thing around the corner is a stout wooden door, carved with dancing satyrs. To Otto's trained gaze, the door appears firmly closed, but lacking a locking mechanism. Gathering the others close to him, he shoulders the door open, revealing a dark, shadowy room inside.
The room is roughly square and is filled with shadows cast by a four foot high partition that splits the room. The partition has a wide top to it, somewhat like a tavern railing. Otto can dimly see another door to the left, in the wall. The Company cautiously enters the room, Otto and the archers moving over towards the other door while Alouicious searches behind the bar for alcohol of some sort.
The area behind the bar is dimly lit with a red glow emanating from a the corner of the bar. A glowing red gemstone pulses quietly, its light hidden from sight. Al is entranced by the gemstone, and he fails to notice the gathering shadows behind him. Out of the corner of his eye, a blackness forms, but that is the last he sees as the blackness overcomes him.
Al's startled gasp and the thud of his body into the inside of the bar catches the Company's attention. They go to the aid of their short compatriot. The cause of Alouicious's collapse is plain, the great rents in his side and back that have slain him, or at least would have absent Myrick's ring. The creature that caused them is not visible. The Company takes up a position in the middle of the room, searching out the shadows for the Al's assailant.
They do not have long to wait. A blackness detaches itself from the shadows pooled along the walls and launches at Winthrop. Winthrop barely fends it off, receiving brutal tears and bites in his exchange with the creature. Its appearance gives Otto and Raven an opportunity to strike at it. Their bastardswords seem to grab hold of the creatures strange flesh, but it is hard to see and harder to place a square blow against it. Once it makes it back into the shadows, the creature is effectively invisible.
"Winthrop," shouts Otto, "we need more light in here." Winthrop, ever prepared with more lightstones, starts tossing them about the room. The effect of the lightstones is apparent. A dark creature, shaped like a hulking beast on ghostly legs, with sharp fangs and claws, skulks along the periphery of the room, blending into what little shadow exists. Almost two dimensional in its appearance, it is a strange beast, difficult to see and track. It again springs at the Company, charging at Hugh, who stands in the doorway, but its eyes, red and pulsating, bore into Raven's.
Raven feels an eerily familiar feeling, as if his ego was being crushed and displaced subsumed by a greater power. He sees monsters, and it feels like he's losing his mind and can see it going. Remembering back to the horrible experiences in the Little Hills, he struggles against it. "There is no life but unlife!" echoes from some hidden portion of his brain and visions of eviscerated virgins surge forth, blotting out any possibility of being possessed or controlled by a weaker being. A mind touched by Nerull is either broken or reformed stronger, and Raven's in clearly the latter. The force trying to crush his ego is repelled or even possibly repulsed.
Otto slides past the edge of the bar and scoops up the pulsating red gemstone, stowing it in his belt pouch. Hugh, alarmed at Otto's sudden interest in material goods, points at Otto and invokes Trithereon's might, trying to clasp him in Trithereon's grasp. "What are you doing?" barks Otto, spinning around and leveling his sword at Hugh.
Raven brings Frostbrand down through the creatures body in a mighty two-handed blow. The inky creature drops to the ground, cleaved, and immediately begins to lose shape.
"He's possessed!" shouts Hugh. "Look at him!"'
"Have you gone mad?" yells Otto.
"Quiet, both of you," says Raven, sheathing his shield and sword and drawing his longbow again.
"He's possessed, I say. Look at how he's coveting that gemstone!" argues Hugh.
"I am not. It's a useless hunk of quartz," snarls Otto.
"I said shut up, or I'll drill both of you and then we'll sort it out later," commands Raven, nocking an arrow. The ranger and the priest glare at each other and at Raven, but then subside. "Glad you've worked it out," says Raven.
Hugh and Winthrop tend to Alouicious, binding his wounds, but he is gravely injured. Myrick's ring will keep him alive, and will heal his wounds eventually, but not quickly. Hugh gravely informs the others that it will take all of his remaining prayers and miracles granted to him by Trithereon to bring Alouicious back to a mobile state. Raven and Otto confer, discussing the likelihood of the Company's success if Otto remains the only front-line fighter. With the loss of Diego's armor, Diego is no longer willing to stand in the front line, and Raven is firmly of the belief that his value as an archer is more valuable than as a sword-swinger. Regretfully, Raven motions Hugh to spend the last of his healing powers on Al, so that Al can take one more blow while protecting the archers.
Alouicious stirs, ruefully wishing that he had found a bottle of something alcoholic behind the bar rather than something dark and deadly. "Can I see the gem," Alouicious asks Otto. Otto hands it over to him. The gem that he spied no longer pulses with an eerie red heartbeat, and Raven claims that it is a large, but heavily flawed, quartz. Al does not remember seeing the large flaw that runs through the gemstone when he first spied it, but the flaw is plain as day, visible to the eye.
The Company continues on up the Great Tree, breaching the door in the left-hand wall and hiking up the corridor beyond. The corridor widens, becoming a hall of some sort, and then narrows again, compressing into stairs that lead upwards. The Company takes them at speed and finds itself in another chamber, this one again seeming more like a natural growth than a room carved out of the tree. To the left is closed door, to the right is another exit that appears to lead further up the tree, and in the middle of the room is a large black pool. The Company pauses, uncertain which way to go.
Otto checks the floor for tracks and finds that recent tracks head towards the opening on the right, but other tracks, similar to the green creatures', lead towards the left, closed door. Older tracks, including booted human tracks, lead up to the pool. Al and Herbert walk up to the pool and finds nothing threatening about it. The pool has a thin ring of oil and debris in it, as if it was polluted to some degree. The pool is shallow, no more than a few feet deep, but it is a good fifteen feet across.
"This appears to be a pool for scrying," says Herbert. "Though it is unlikely to have been recently used."
Seeing no snake of water rise up out of the pool and snatch Otto to his doom, the rest of the Company begins to move about the room, heading for both the door, to prepare to open it, and the passage, to secure it. The Company is therefore startled when shadowed figures rise up out of the pool.
Alouicious realizes that he has made a frightful error as a shadowy double smites him. The last Al sees is a great axe blade whistling towards his head. Herbert fares a bit better, successfully dodging the slashing blow that his shadowy double makes..
Jasper, seeing the battle taking place, rushes forward to help Al. Jasper launches himself through the air, aiming a kick at his shadowy opponent's throat. The shadowed figure makes a gagging sound and staggers as Jasper's foot impacts the soft tissue jutting up over the protective platemail.
Jasper's gaze sweeps the pool. Like with Al and Herbert, a shadowy figure rises up out of the pool and takes on his form. The shadowed Herbert strikes forth with his scimitar, launching a sweeping blow at Jasper's side. Jasper, taken by surprise, crumples to the ground around the blow.
"Don't look into the pool!" cries Otto, as he charges over from the doorway. He keeps his eyes averted from the pool, but this proves his downfall. The shadowed form of Jasper pirouettes and sends a smashing forearm into the side of Otto's face. A blow that he normally would easily take on his helm simply by ducking slightly, comes in unobserved, and his head whips about, sending him sprawling.
Diego and Raven send a flurry of arrows at the shadowed forms that ape their compatriots. The shadowed figure of Herbert absorbs several of them and falls backwards into the pool, the body sinking in without a splash. The shadowed figure of Jasper writhes and pivots just as Jasper would have, the killing shafts batted aside or dodged. The shadowed figure of Jasper lands a hammer blow in the middle of Herbert's forehead, and Herbert crumples to the ground, clutching his skull. After felling two of the Company, the shadowed figure of Jasper raises one hand towards Raven and beckons him with a twitch of his fingers.
"Kill the others," says Raven to Diego. "I'll kill that mockery of a monk, blindfolded." Raven takes a good look at the battle scene, squeezes his eyes shut and then charges forward, dropping his bow and pulling forth Frostbrand as he does so. The sound of Diego's killing shafts whisper by him as draws into combat with the errant monk. "Dodge this," he grunts as he makes a broad stroke with the bastardsword. Raven feels some resistance, but he does not open his eyes to see what he might have slain.
Pfiffwin runs forward as well, trying to avert his eyes and reach Otto. He succeeds at reaching Otto, but fails at averting his eyes. A shadowy image of the gnome rises up out of the pool and menaces him and Otto with a sharp sword. "Raven, you're good," cries Diego. "Don't move though. I've got more shots to take." Again the buzzing of Diego's arrows comes remarkably near to Raven, his senses heightened because of his current blindness. "Ok, all clear," comes Diego's shout. Raven walks backwards towards the rest of the Company, only opening his eyes again when he feels someone grab hold of him. Otto and Herbert still lie prone on the ground, gasping and grasping, while Alouicious and Jasper lie unconscious, or worse.
"Anyone got any ideas how to get to them without causing more creatures to come out?" asks Winthrop. The solution comes from an unlikely source. Pfiffwin reaches into a small pouch at his belt and quickly pulls and throws an object from it. A burst of darkness overcomes the Company at the pool, and then the pool is swathed in a black globe.
"I thought that might come in handy," chuckles Pfiffwin. Winthrop eyes the gnome with suspicion, wondering how many other tricks he might have up his sleeve. "Simple enough magic," says Pfiffwin. "I'd be happy to do it for others as well, for a small fee. Very rare components necessary to make a darkness object."
With the pool covered in darkness, the Company is able to reach in and drag free the unconscious. Otto and Herbert stagger out under their own power. Through a combination of bandages, unguents, and holy fruit, Jasper is returned to consciousness. Alouicious though, he is beyond current help. The prayers bestowed on him by Hugh appear to have been for naught.
The Company finally turns to the door, and they find that it is locked. Rather than try to open the door, they choose to push onwards, reshuffling their marching order to place Diego in the rear of the Company, in case something should come after them. Herbert agrees to drag the unconscious, but mending, dwarf along behind him in the middle of the group.
With Al injured and the Company somewhat depleted, Raven prevails on Hugh to pull out and activate Fido, his dog statuette. Hugh does so reluctantly, not wishing harm to come to Fido. Fido, ever happy to be active, barks at the Company and then wags his tail. "Ready to serve," says the dog.
"Follow the trail up the rampway and give advice to the large man in the front," directs Hugh, and Fido happily lopes to the front.
The passageway appears to lead into a large natural cyst within the Great Tree. Irregularly shaped, it is a good hundred feet across and seems to have a rough floor that slopes down away from the entrance. A catwalk winds in a circuitous, long path from the entry to an exit on the far side of the cyst. While the cyst is a hundred feet long, the catwalk is so circuitous that anyone walking along it would travel at least twice the distance as the more direct route along the floor itself. The floor is covered mushrooms of varying heights and sizes, none of which come as high as the bottom of the catwalk.
"Too tempting to cut through the mushrooms," says Winthrop. "Look, no path exists, so the giant goblins must keep on the catwalk." The rest of the Company agrees, and they maintain their marching order down the catwalk. The catwalk sags and undulates under their combined weight and rhythm. Only twenty feet from the exit, a bundle of material, white and sticky, drops from above onto Otto, who leads the way. Otto struggles under the material, which bears more than a passing resemblance to spider webbing.
"Up there!" cries Perrin, strumming the banjo with all his might. Descending out of the darkness above comes an orange limned spider, easily the size of a horse. Winthrop sends magical bolts into the creature while both Raven, who stands almost directly beneath it, and Diego, who fires at a long distance, try to pincushion the creature. Fido, with a surprised yelp, rushes forward, dodging past the thrashing Otto. With a heavy thud, the great brown spider lands on the catwalk and strikes at Raven.
No fool, Raven drops his bow and pulls forth his shield and Frostbrand. He fends the creature back, trying to keep its attention away from Otto, who is ripping his way free of the webbing that engulfed him. Surprisingly, two shafts embed themselves in the giant spider's flank! Diego, perceiving the problem of fighting in a line on the catwalk, has run backwards to a point where the catwalk's circuitous path provides him with a clear shot and taken it. Encouraged, Raven stabs the giant brown spider through the right eye, crushing it and the vicious mind behind it.
Relieved to have not been bitten, Raven helps Otto free himself from the webbing. Herbert appears saddened by the death of the spider, wondering again if this creature was one that was protecting the Great Tree or those that have invaded it. The rest of the Company is less inclined to care about the motivations of a giant venomous spider that attacks them.
The far end of the catwalk ends in another passageway that begins a steep incline up the tree. The passageway curves more tightly than before. Either the Company is much higher in the Great Tree than before, and the trunk is thus narrower, or they are no longer following the circumference of the Great Tree but rather climbing within the heartwood. The passage turns and turns, an ever ascending ramp, until two great doors block the passage. The doors are ornately carved with scenes of a great tree on them, and the passageway extends in astraight line before them for about twenty feet.
"Ok, here we are," whispers Otto. "They went through there."
"Here's the plan," says Raven. "Otto takes down the door. Jasper and I run in and flank them. Mages fire into the room once Otto clears the door. Diego and Perrin holds attackers off the mages. Herbert and Hugh hold the back in case something comes up at us from that direction. Clear? Good. When you're ready, Otto."
The passage makes a tight turn, as if curving towards the center of the Great Tree. The Company takes the corner very slowly, not wanting to be surprised by an ambush of bugbears. Fortunately, the only thing around the corner is a stout wooden door, carved with dancing satyrs. To Otto's trained gaze, the door appears firmly closed, but lacking a locking mechanism. Gathering the others close to him, he shoulders the door open, revealing a dark, shadowy room inside.
The room is roughly square and is filled with shadows cast by a four foot high partition that splits the room. The partition has a wide top to it, somewhat like a tavern railing. Otto can dimly see another door to the left, in the wall. The Company cautiously enters the room, Otto and the archers moving over towards the other door while Alouicious searches behind the bar for alcohol of some sort.
The area behind the bar is dimly lit with a red glow emanating from a the corner of the bar. A glowing red gemstone pulses quietly, its light hidden from sight. Al is entranced by the gemstone, and he fails to notice the gathering shadows behind him. Out of the corner of his eye, a blackness forms, but that is the last he sees as the blackness overcomes him.
Al's startled gasp and the thud of his body into the inside of the bar catches the Company's attention. They go to the aid of their short compatriot. The cause of Alouicious's collapse is plain, the great rents in his side and back that have slain him, or at least would have absent Myrick's ring. The creature that caused them is not visible. The Company takes up a position in the middle of the room, searching out the shadows for the Al's assailant.
They do not have long to wait. A blackness detaches itself from the shadows pooled along the walls and launches at Winthrop. Winthrop barely fends it off, receiving brutal tears and bites in his exchange with the creature. Its appearance gives Otto and Raven an opportunity to strike at it. Their bastardswords seem to grab hold of the creatures strange flesh, but it is hard to see and harder to place a square blow against it. Once it makes it back into the shadows, the creature is effectively invisible.
"Winthrop," shouts Otto, "we need more light in here." Winthrop, ever prepared with more lightstones, starts tossing them about the room. The effect of the lightstones is apparent. A dark creature, shaped like a hulking beast on ghostly legs, with sharp fangs and claws, skulks along the periphery of the room, blending into what little shadow exists. Almost two dimensional in its appearance, it is a strange beast, difficult to see and track. It again springs at the Company, charging at Hugh, who stands in the doorway, but its eyes, red and pulsating, bore into Raven's.
Raven feels an eerily familiar feeling, as if his ego was being crushed and displaced subsumed by a greater power. He sees monsters, and it feels like he's losing his mind and can see it going. Remembering back to the horrible experiences in the Little Hills, he struggles against it. "There is no life but unlife!" echoes from some hidden portion of his brain and visions of eviscerated virgins surge forth, blotting out any possibility of being possessed or controlled by a weaker being. A mind touched by Nerull is either broken or reformed stronger, and Raven's in clearly the latter. The force trying to crush his ego is repelled or even possibly repulsed.
Otto slides past the edge of the bar and scoops up the pulsating red gemstone, stowing it in his belt pouch. Hugh, alarmed at Otto's sudden interest in material goods, points at Otto and invokes Trithereon's might, trying to clasp him in Trithereon's grasp. "What are you doing?" barks Otto, spinning around and leveling his sword at Hugh.
Raven brings Frostbrand down through the creatures body in a mighty two-handed blow. The inky creature drops to the ground, cleaved, and immediately begins to lose shape.
"He's possessed!" shouts Hugh. "Look at him!"'
"Have you gone mad?" yells Otto.
"Quiet, both of you," says Raven, sheathing his shield and sword and drawing his longbow again.
"He's possessed, I say. Look at how he's coveting that gemstone!" argues Hugh.
"I am not. It's a useless hunk of quartz," snarls Otto.
"I said shut up, or I'll drill both of you and then we'll sort it out later," commands Raven, nocking an arrow. The ranger and the priest glare at each other and at Raven, but then subside. "Glad you've worked it out," says Raven.
Hugh and Winthrop tend to Alouicious, binding his wounds, but he is gravely injured. Myrick's ring will keep him alive, and will heal his wounds eventually, but not quickly. Hugh gravely informs the others that it will take all of his remaining prayers and miracles granted to him by Trithereon to bring Alouicious back to a mobile state. Raven and Otto confer, discussing the likelihood of the Company's success if Otto remains the only front-line fighter. With the loss of Diego's armor, Diego is no longer willing to stand in the front line, and Raven is firmly of the belief that his value as an archer is more valuable than as a sword-swinger. Regretfully, Raven motions Hugh to spend the last of his healing powers on Al, so that Al can take one more blow while protecting the archers.
Alouicious stirs, ruefully wishing that he had found a bottle of something alcoholic behind the bar rather than something dark and deadly. "Can I see the gem," Alouicious asks Otto. Otto hands it over to him. The gem that he spied no longer pulses with an eerie red heartbeat, and Raven claims that it is a large, but heavily flawed, quartz. Al does not remember seeing the large flaw that runs through the gemstone when he first spied it, but the flaw is plain as day, visible to the eye.
The Company continues on up the Great Tree, breaching the door in the left-hand wall and hiking up the corridor beyond. The corridor widens, becoming a hall of some sort, and then narrows again, compressing into stairs that lead upwards. The Company takes them at speed and finds itself in another chamber, this one again seeming more like a natural growth than a room carved out of the tree. To the left is closed door, to the right is another exit that appears to lead further up the tree, and in the middle of the room is a large black pool. The Company pauses, uncertain which way to go.
Otto checks the floor for tracks and finds that recent tracks head towards the opening on the right, but other tracks, similar to the green creatures', lead towards the left, closed door. Older tracks, including booted human tracks, lead up to the pool. Al and Herbert walk up to the pool and finds nothing threatening about it. The pool has a thin ring of oil and debris in it, as if it was polluted to some degree. The pool is shallow, no more than a few feet deep, but it is a good fifteen feet across.
"This appears to be a pool for scrying," says Herbert. "Though it is unlikely to have been recently used."
Seeing no snake of water rise up out of the pool and snatch Otto to his doom, the rest of the Company begins to move about the room, heading for both the door, to prepare to open it, and the passage, to secure it. The Company is therefore startled when shadowed figures rise up out of the pool.
Alouicious realizes that he has made a frightful error as a shadowy double smites him. The last Al sees is a great axe blade whistling towards his head. Herbert fares a bit better, successfully dodging the slashing blow that his shadowy double makes..
Jasper, seeing the battle taking place, rushes forward to help Al. Jasper launches himself through the air, aiming a kick at his shadowy opponent's throat. The shadowed figure makes a gagging sound and staggers as Jasper's foot impacts the soft tissue jutting up over the protective platemail.
Jasper's gaze sweeps the pool. Like with Al and Herbert, a shadowy figure rises up out of the pool and takes on his form. The shadowed Herbert strikes forth with his scimitar, launching a sweeping blow at Jasper's side. Jasper, taken by surprise, crumples to the ground around the blow.
"Don't look into the pool!" cries Otto, as he charges over from the doorway. He keeps his eyes averted from the pool, but this proves his downfall. The shadowed form of Jasper pirouettes and sends a smashing forearm into the side of Otto's face. A blow that he normally would easily take on his helm simply by ducking slightly, comes in unobserved, and his head whips about, sending him sprawling.
Diego and Raven send a flurry of arrows at the shadowed forms that ape their compatriots. The shadowed figure of Herbert absorbs several of them and falls backwards into the pool, the body sinking in without a splash. The shadowed figure of Jasper writhes and pivots just as Jasper would have, the killing shafts batted aside or dodged. The shadowed figure of Jasper lands a hammer blow in the middle of Herbert's forehead, and Herbert crumples to the ground, clutching his skull. After felling two of the Company, the shadowed figure of Jasper raises one hand towards Raven and beckons him with a twitch of his fingers.
"Kill the others," says Raven to Diego. "I'll kill that mockery of a monk, blindfolded." Raven takes a good look at the battle scene, squeezes his eyes shut and then charges forward, dropping his bow and pulling forth Frostbrand as he does so. The sound of Diego's killing shafts whisper by him as draws into combat with the errant monk. "Dodge this," he grunts as he makes a broad stroke with the bastardsword. Raven feels some resistance, but he does not open his eyes to see what he might have slain.
Pfiffwin runs forward as well, trying to avert his eyes and reach Otto. He succeeds at reaching Otto, but fails at averting his eyes. A shadowy image of the gnome rises up out of the pool and menaces him and Otto with a sharp sword. "Raven, you're good," cries Diego. "Don't move though. I've got more shots to take." Again the buzzing of Diego's arrows comes remarkably near to Raven, his senses heightened because of his current blindness. "Ok, all clear," comes Diego's shout. Raven walks backwards towards the rest of the Company, only opening his eyes again when he feels someone grab hold of him. Otto and Herbert still lie prone on the ground, gasping and grasping, while Alouicious and Jasper lie unconscious, or worse.
"Anyone got any ideas how to get to them without causing more creatures to come out?" asks Winthrop. The solution comes from an unlikely source. Pfiffwin reaches into a small pouch at his belt and quickly pulls and throws an object from it. A burst of darkness overcomes the Company at the pool, and then the pool is swathed in a black globe.
"I thought that might come in handy," chuckles Pfiffwin. Winthrop eyes the gnome with suspicion, wondering how many other tricks he might have up his sleeve. "Simple enough magic," says Pfiffwin. "I'd be happy to do it for others as well, for a small fee. Very rare components necessary to make a darkness object."
With the pool covered in darkness, the Company is able to reach in and drag free the unconscious. Otto and Herbert stagger out under their own power. Through a combination of bandages, unguents, and holy fruit, Jasper is returned to consciousness. Alouicious though, he is beyond current help. The prayers bestowed on him by Hugh appear to have been for naught.
The Company finally turns to the door, and they find that it is locked. Rather than try to open the door, they choose to push onwards, reshuffling their marching order to place Diego in the rear of the Company, in case something should come after them. Herbert agrees to drag the unconscious, but mending, dwarf along behind him in the middle of the group.
With Al injured and the Company somewhat depleted, Raven prevails on Hugh to pull out and activate Fido, his dog statuette. Hugh does so reluctantly, not wishing harm to come to Fido. Fido, ever happy to be active, barks at the Company and then wags his tail. "Ready to serve," says the dog.
"Follow the trail up the rampway and give advice to the large man in the front," directs Hugh, and Fido happily lopes to the front.
The passageway appears to lead into a large natural cyst within the Great Tree. Irregularly shaped, it is a good hundred feet across and seems to have a rough floor that slopes down away from the entrance. A catwalk winds in a circuitous, long path from the entry to an exit on the far side of the cyst. While the cyst is a hundred feet long, the catwalk is so circuitous that anyone walking along it would travel at least twice the distance as the more direct route along the floor itself. The floor is covered mushrooms of varying heights and sizes, none of which come as high as the bottom of the catwalk.
"Too tempting to cut through the mushrooms," says Winthrop. "Look, no path exists, so the giant goblins must keep on the catwalk." The rest of the Company agrees, and they maintain their marching order down the catwalk. The catwalk sags and undulates under their combined weight and rhythm. Only twenty feet from the exit, a bundle of material, white and sticky, drops from above onto Otto, who leads the way. Otto struggles under the material, which bears more than a passing resemblance to spider webbing.
"Up there!" cries Perrin, strumming the banjo with all his might. Descending out of the darkness above comes an orange limned spider, easily the size of a horse. Winthrop sends magical bolts into the creature while both Raven, who stands almost directly beneath it, and Diego, who fires at a long distance, try to pincushion the creature. Fido, with a surprised yelp, rushes forward, dodging past the thrashing Otto. With a heavy thud, the great brown spider lands on the catwalk and strikes at Raven.
No fool, Raven drops his bow and pulls forth his shield and Frostbrand. He fends the creature back, trying to keep its attention away from Otto, who is ripping his way free of the webbing that engulfed him. Surprisingly, two shafts embed themselves in the giant spider's flank! Diego, perceiving the problem of fighting in a line on the catwalk, has run backwards to a point where the catwalk's circuitous path provides him with a clear shot and taken it. Encouraged, Raven stabs the giant brown spider through the right eye, crushing it and the vicious mind behind it.
Relieved to have not been bitten, Raven helps Otto free himself from the webbing. Herbert appears saddened by the death of the spider, wondering again if this creature was one that was protecting the Great Tree or those that have invaded it. The rest of the Company is less inclined to care about the motivations of a giant venomous spider that attacks them.
The far end of the catwalk ends in another passageway that begins a steep incline up the tree. The passageway curves more tightly than before. Either the Company is much higher in the Great Tree than before, and the trunk is thus narrower, or they are no longer following the circumference of the Great Tree but rather climbing within the heartwood. The passage turns and turns, an ever ascending ramp, until two great doors block the passage. The doors are ornately carved with scenes of a great tree on them, and the passageway extends in astraight line before them for about twenty feet.
"Ok, here we are," whispers Otto. "They went through there."
"Here's the plan," says Raven. "Otto takes down the door. Jasper and I run in and flank them. Mages fire into the room once Otto clears the door. Diego and Perrin holds attackers off the mages. Herbert and Hugh hold the back in case something comes up at us from that direction. Clear? Good. When you're ready, Otto."
