War in the Webbed City

The party spent an uneasy interval of time in their tiny hut within the gnomish bunker, resting and recuperating from their injuries. Erwen sat cross-legged on the floor huddled in his bearskin robe, head tilted back, his tongue flicking out now and again as though he was tasting the air. “What are you doing?” Alec asked. “It’s snowing outside, on the mountain,” Erwen explained. “Big, pretty flakes.” “How do you know that?” Alec asked, skeptical. Erwen uncovered a sphere of inclement weather that glittered like a snowglobe in his lap. Alec was impressed. Erwen stared at the globe before him. “I do hate caves,” he muttered to himself. Siegfried spent much of his time in quiet contemplation and study, leafing through the tattered remnants of the spellbooks and other grimoires that Radegast had gifted him. Few things are as satisfying as plundering lore from varied disciplines , he reflected. Well, that and being the heir apparent to a powerful kingdom . Siegfried clapped his hands and called the party to attention. “Gentlemen, might I interest you in a telepathic bond ?” Varien frowned. “I’m not sure I want you inside my head, Siegfried.” Siegfried gave a mock wounded expression. “Ah, but think of the strategic benefits to such an arrangement. All of us together, and, say, one of these valiant gnome defenders here, would be linked together so that we might be able to communicate non-verbally, and more importantly, stealthily, while engaging our foes. We could also split up more efficiently, each keeping the others informed of what they have discovered. And the range of such communication is, well, intraplanar, as the sages say.” Theryn stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Unity of mind can lead to unity of spirit, and of action.” Siegfried beamed. “Then it’s settled.” He turned to face the gnomes. “Now, who among you would like to join our secret, telepathic club, hmmm?” Udohorn looked uncomfortable at the notion, and Belfalcon, huddled together with Fnipper, wasn’t paying attention. That left Zook, who looked at Udohorn and back to Siegfried before wordlessly shrugging. “Excellent, excellent,” Siegfried said. “I have a few other new spells to add to my repertoire, but I wanted to get a read of the room before boxing myself in.” “Box away, Siegfried,” Varien muttered. Erwen used druidcraft to create a spider yo-yo, which he let fly around the fortress’s main chamber, much to Bob’s chagrin. “Is that…is that a Black Spider?” Bob growled. Erwen skillfully let the yo-yo “walk the spider” for a few moments before putting it away. Udohorn ordered Belfalcon to retrieve an item from the storeroom, and the reluctant teen obliged, returning with a dusty bottle and a collection of clay cups. “Mushroom wine,” Udohorn explained. “A wee nip of courage before you sally forth.” He poured and passed, poured and passed, until all who wished to imbibe had done so. Erwen lit up his pipe as a palate cleanser. Varien caught Udohorn’s attention. “Would you be able to lower the southern drawbridge and deactivate any traps before we head out? I would like to sweep the area for more of these foul blood puddles.” Udohorn indicated a complicated control console that was thick with levers, switches and buttons. “Easy as mushroom wine, it is.” “Yes, and we’ll need a warning before any traps within your perimeter are activated,” Siegfried said, tapping his temple with his forefinger. Udohorn looked at Zook, who shrugged silently. Varien’s divine sense informed him that there was indeed the reek of desecration not too far from the gnome’s redoubt. “Time to go,” he told his comrades. The party fell into line behind him.   All was silent in the stale air of the cavern save for the clanking of the winch that lowered the drawbridge. Varien homed in on the source of the bloody corruption, located in an alleyway between two townhouses on the eastern side of the street. Spiderwebs draped the walls and roofs of the buildings like tarps. To the south, another island fortress rose up from the river, and there was a waterwheel spinning at the river’s edge. “Quietly now,” hissed Varien. The paladin moved surprisingly stealthily for someone wearing plate armour. Siegfried tapped his temple again. There are even quieter ways than whispering, Varien. Varien spied the splotch of crimson at the end of the narrow alleyway and led his companions into the tight confines. Unlike the others, this one was still fresh and wet, though a congealing skin had begun to form over its surface. “Nasty,” Varien wrinkled his nose, as he began a cleansing ritual. “I’ll use evergold if I have to.” Suddenly the blood began to boil. “What’s this foul business?” Varien said, perplexed. There was a sickening sound like a back-alley drunk straining to vomit as the bloody pool suddenly fountained upward like a crimson waterspout, spraying droplets everywhere as its form coalesced into something vaguely humanoid at the tip of the rotating column. Black, congealed blisters formed into eye sockets and the column’s terminus split into a horrible mouth-like gap, which grinned maniacally at the paladin. Fiendsbane rattled. A blood demon! “Bloody fiend!” Varien roared, needing no prompting from his sword. He drew his blade and readied his shield, standing his ground as the blood demon formed a shape like a spear, launching it at the paladin. Varien staggered as his shield took the brunt of the blow. The party backpedaled away from the demon, eager to find more room to swing their weapons. It was then that the spiders seized the opportunity to strike. Three of them jumped from the rooftops on either side of the alley, leaping down to street level to engage the adventurers in close quarters. Bob’s eyes widened as he tried to defend himself against one of the skittering, grasping creatures and winced as the spider managed to bite his arm, pumping venom into his veins. A second spider tried to seize the sorcerer in its jaws, but missed. There were screeches from the nearby island as three more spiders poured out from their hidden nests. One attempted to jump across the gap between the island fort and the street, but misjudged the angle, leaping directly into the spinning waterwheel. Black blood sprayed everywhere as the corpse was dragged beneath the water. A second and third spider made the jump, and one charged at Varien, biting him with its mandibles. Erwen cast animal friendship . “Everybody relax!” he shouted, his arms outstretched. Five of the six spiders immediately shuddered to a halt. The two flanking Bob began to groom him with their pedipalps, almost apologetically. “Eww, stop it!” Bob said, his voice pitched an octave higher than normal. He squirmed to get away. “Gentlemen,” Erwen said in a placating tone to the spiders. “We’re going to need all the help we can get down here.” The five charmed spiders eyed one another uncertainly, but made no aggressive moves towards Erwen. Alec stood firm next to Siegfried, who cast a hex on the blood demon, weakening it before stabbing it with Talon, cutting back and forth in a dazzling flourish. He spun on one foot and stabbed at the lone aggressive spider, slicing a wound in its thorax. Theryn cast hunter’s mark on the spider as he readied his bo staff, feinting with an intentional miss and then spun the weapon with extra force to land squarely on the spider’s braincase. He stepped back as the spider staggered sideways, senseless. Varien charged Fiendsbane with divine energy, sending rippling waves of fire down the weapon’s blade. He glared fiercely at the blood demon that still swirled before him. “You’ve made a grave mistake coming here,” he hissed at the demon. “You will bleed forever,” the demon hissed back. “You first!” Varien said as he cast spirit guardians . Pinpricks of firelight began to form in an orbiting aura around him, each blazing bolt taking on the shape of a flaming phoenix. The spectral flame forms flitted out in a 15-foot radius around the paladin, passing harmlessly through the bodies of his companions, but becoming painfully manifest as far as the blood demon and spider were concerned. “The blood coursing through my veins will stay there!” Varien shouted triumphantly as the burning barrier blasted the blood demon, which withered and struggled to retain its shape beneath the onslaught. Bob twinned a guiding bolt and fired them from his other index fingers, one at the blood demon and one at the spider. Both bolts slammed home, destroying both creatures in a spray of red and black blood, which comingled into a sickening sludge on the alley’s cobblestones. “Take out the blood puddle!” Siegfried urged, and Varien completed the cleansing ritual. An uneasy silence descended. Erwen gathered his spider friends close and cast speak with animals . To the rest of the party, it sounded like Erwen was cracking his own teeth and jawbone with the number of loud clicks and clacks coming from his mouth. “So, who are you guys?” Erwen asked. The spiders introduced themselves as Ocho, Otto, Hachi, Acht, and Opt. “You are a friend of the Gossamer Lattice?” Ocho asked inquisitively. “Naturally,” Erwen said, his face full of boastful pride. “Well, we do enjoy networking,” Otto said. “Great,” Erwen said, his telepathic bond doing the translation work for the rest of the party. “Now, gather round, and thanks again for your help today. I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you here in my little web of friendship today.” The spiders reacted positively to his metaphor. “Are you a web designer?” Acht, the dimmest star in the spider constellation, asked.” “Yes, of course, I spin with the best of them,” Erwen said. “But step into my parlour for a moment. You all came here under your own free will, I take it? Where did you come from?” Hachi made a throat-clearing noise of uncertain provenance and said, “The Black Spider called, and we listened.” “Through our network,” Ocho explained. “Long distance communications, you understand.” “Lord Nezznar is quite a web designer!” Acht chirped unhelpfully. “Interesting,” Erwen said. “Now, some people—he turned to give a significant look to his party members—“think that I don’t pay attention to current events, but I know that Nezznar’s friends, like the Redbrands, and like Glasstaff, usually know what’s what.” He gave the spiders a hopeful look. “Can you take us to the Black Spider?” “Yes, we can take you to the Black Spider,” Hachi replied. “It is but a short web walk away.” The spiders worked together to spin a bridge of webbing across the river to the island fort. “It’s this way,” Hachi said, pointing with two of his legs in a westerly direction. The party walked gingerly on the bridge of spiderwebs, Bob looking pointedly anywhere except down. Strangely, it seemed like the spiders were able to keep their natural adhesive in check, as the webbing was not nearly as sticky as usual. Okay, the first thing we are going to do is slap Nezznar senseless , Siegfried said telepathically. Bob, you get ready to cast counterspells and interrupt his casting, and Varien, when it’s fireball time, it’s fireball time. Siegfried, Varien said with a silent glare in the half-orc’s direction. You don’t need to tell me how to kill the Black Spider.

The spiders led them across the webbed bridge to the southern island fort. Its doors hung drunkenly open, choked with spiderwebs. “ Those poor gnomes,” Theryn shook his head at the desiccated husks entombed in webbing. “We could roam down here forever, hunting down the blood portals, but how will we know if we get them all, even if we kill every spider we find? Should we tell the surviving gnomes to just hunker down for the rest of their lives?” Siegfried shook his head, showing the party the bloody phial he had recovered. “ This is the work of orcish blood magic. I don’t know how the Black Spider has gotten control of this, but we should worry more about the blood demons than the spiders.” “Tell that to them,” Theryn said, indicating more drained gnomes. “Surely these spiders have drank their fill without slaughtering the town’s entire population,” Alec said. “Why are all the bodies drained?” Varien spied a pressure plate that doubtlessly concealed another gnomish trap and pointed it out to his companions. Beyond the trap, a gnome bridge led westward. Varien’s divine sense kicked in. “ There’s more corruption to the west of us, lads,” he said. “I’m going to check it out.” He jumped the bridge using his boots of striding and springing .     Two large buildings loomed above the ransacked and empty townhomes. The largest, half-set into the cavern’s walls, was an impressive fortress of gnomish construction, easily twice the size of the river forts. Sprawled in heaps against the fort’s battlements were the dismembered corpses of dozens of giant spiders. A dozen more creatures were stirring amid the corpses of their fellow spiders, using sticky strands of spiderwebs to pull at the fortress’s main gates. “How much are you willing to bet that any survivors are holed up there?” Alec asked. The second, smaller fort stood across a wide, open square from the larger fortification. Atop it blazed a guttering cauldron, providing illumination. Standing next to it, observing the actions of the spiders, was a male drow, wearing a long purple cloak inlaid with blood-red fabric, and holding a tall adamantine quarterstaff in his hands, the head of which was fashioned to look like a spider. “Nezznar!” Bob hissed. “I have a plan to put Nezznar in his place, but I will need a better vantage point to put my plan into motion,” Siegfried said. He began to scale the wall of the island keep. Its roof was covered in spiderwebs, and here and there were the nubbin-shaped cocoons of entombed gnomes. Siegfried sighed despondently. “More people I could not save,” he thought. But now he had the Black Spider squarely in his sights. He crouched down, keeping his eldritch eyes locked on the drow, as he sought a suitable position amid the ruined fort. From the darkness, several beady eyes watched him.   Varien approached the blood portal cautiously but with confidence. “Each one of these we destroy is a blow against the Darkness,” he said. Fiendsbane readily agreed. Behind him, a familiar voice, dripping with mockery, rang out. “Ah, my old friend Varien Aether and his combustible coterie!” the drow called out in accented Common. “We meet again. Welcome to Ieirithymbul!” The drow’s voice echoed maddeningly across the darkened gnome city. Varien turned around to face the drow, who stood atop the smaller of the two fortresses in the city square. The Black Spider gestured towards the tightly-packed townhouses that surrounded them. “I must say that I prefer the stonework of gnomes to that of dwarves, wouldn’t you agree? Their attention to detail, their whimsy, it is, how you say, a stark contrast to the dour, dull developments erected by your average dwarf. A drow could get used to walking these quaint, quiescent quarters.” He frowned mockingly and made an exaggerated searching motion, his hand shielding his eyes as he looked about. “But where, pray tell, is that Princeling of Ava’lynn, who so eloquently beat our swords into ploughshares when last we met? Is he not here to ply his diplomatic trade this day?” Bob grimaced at the reference to Xylon. “And that lovely lady, the half-elf who claimed such skill with the bowstring, where is she?” Nezznar licked his lips. “I would very much like to renew acquaintances with her.” “I got myself polymorphed!” Siegfried shouted from his hiding place. “Nezznar, in all my days I would have never guessed that even a creature as low as you would resort to consorting with demons,” Varien called out. Nezznar shrugged theatrically. “What can I say, except that some allies arrive with certain baggage that is unavoidable, should you wish to gain access their powers in pursuit of your goals. You should take that lesson to heart. After all, it was you and your friends who decimated the Cragmaw goblins, forcing me to diversify my interests.” Varien drew up his sword arm until Fiendsbane’s tip was level with Nezznar’s head. “You’ll die for that,” he growled. Nezznar’s expression remained jovial, though his eyes glittered with the promise of danger. “I do not think so, Varien Aether. You see, I am not myself a naturally violent man. That’s why I hire naturally violent minions.” There was a thwacking sound as the spiky sphere of a massive war flail suddenly swung into view, biting deeply into the masonry of the building that the Black Spider stood atop. The holder of the flail stepped out of the shadows. Short in stature, the creature was wearing armour and carrying a shield in its free hand. With a quick jerk of its head, the creature threw back its helmet visor to fix the party with a snarling stare. “C’mon, Bob, I’ve been waiting for you!” the voice of Yeemik the goblin echoed across the expanse. “I owe you for what you did to my arms!” He flexed both limbs, showing that the armor had been augmented with oiled bracers and straps.” “That goblin’s been busy,” Bob said under his breath to Alec, who nodded. “I’ll say,” Varien said. “From the looks of the emblem on his shield, this goblin is now a paladin in service to Maglubiyet.” “Vengeance will be mine!” Yeemik shrieked. “Come and get it!” Bob shouted as he readied a flame strike . A vertical column of divine fire roared down from the heavens, piercing the cavern’s roof to detonate upon the Black Spider’s position, scorching Nezznar, Yeemik, and one of the spider minions with radiant flame. Smoke roiled from Yeemik’s armor as the goblin shook off the pain, rushing forward and swinging his flail in anticipation of action. He brandished the shield as a holy symbol as he charged, uttering a foul glossolalia of abjuration in Bob’s direction. Bob’s eyes widened as to his growing disbelief a sudden sense of doom swept over him, frightening him to his core. The approaching goblin seemed to him like a giant avenging angel from his worst nightmares.   Siegfried slowly drew out a double handful of ball bearings from his sack, keeping his attention focused on the Black Spider. The drow mage was infused with a number of magical auras that made it difficult to maintain a lock on him, but Siegfried knew that patience and precision would win the day. An eight-legged shadow loomed over the crouching half-orc. Before Siegfried could react, the spider’s mandibles had him pierced and rigid as he tried to fight off the wave of venom that was pumping into his bloodstream. Again, the half-orc felt himself shuddering on the edge of the prime material plane, which threatened to give way and send him spiraling into oblivion. A spider lunged at Erwen only to trigger one of the gnome’s traps. A whirling column of blades sprung up from a concealed compartment in the street, mincing the creature where it stood. Screeching, it aimed its abdomen and launched a stream of sticky webbing at the Halfling, who ducked it easily. “Gross,” Erwen said as he padded forward past his brigade of friendly spiders, which were standing around not knowing exactly what to make of the sudden onslaught of violence. He cast erupting earth in the Black Spider’s direction. The building beneath Nezznar’s feet shifted and buckled as the ground turned into a churning mass of turning earth and crushing chunks of stone. Nimbly, the drow sought safety on a stable chunk of stonework, while his spider minion wasn’t as lucky, disappearing with a squish beneath a wave of wreckage. Alec climbed atop the building where Siegfried was positioned, firing ineffectually at the spiders with his hand crossbow. One of the bolts grazed Siegfried's arm. The half-orc frowned at Alec, who shrugged apologetically. Siegfried shoved the spider away from him, backing up to give him room to switch to a Plan B. “This is wasted on you, you know,” he told the spider, whose mandibles clicked in confusion. He threw the ball bearings into the air and cast animate object , bringing the steel spheres to a semblance of life. He pointed his finger at the offending spider and said “attack!” In unison the ball bearings shot forward as if from a slingshot in an expanding cloud, striking the spider from all angles, punching through arachnid meat and popping eyeballs with precise penetrations. The spider was obscured by a cloud of its own lifeblood, reeling back under the airborne assault. Theryn attempted to land a hunter’s mark on the Black Spider, but was puzzled when the spell failed. Unable to reach the drow, he unlimbered his longbow and attempted to plug the Black Spider, but his shots went wide.  “Well, I see that the battle is well and truly joined!” Nezznar said with bravado. “But I fear that I must divide and conquer!” He cast wall of force and a barrier began to rise between the scattered party members. “Denied!” Bob shouted as he counterspelled the Black Spider’s invocation. There was a flash of magical energy as the wall of force collapsed into wisps of etherealness. Nezznar’s eyes widened in shock. Then he turned and ran into the shadows. Varien’s spirit guardians laid into Yeemik as he rushed at the goblin, smiting him and shoving him off the narrow bridge into the waters below. The goblin sputtered and shouted in surprise and anger as the guardians continued to dive and swoop at him. Varien ignored the splashing goblin and turned to drive Fiendsbane through the fleshy abdomen of the spider. He then sprinted towards Nezznar, ignoring the spider’s feeble attempts to hit back. “Run as you might, you will not retreat nor escape!” he promised the drow as he quickened a flamestrike spell and fired it at the Black Spider. Another pillar of divine fire descended from the cavern’s roof like a whirlwind and caught the Black Spider up in its flaming orbit. Nezznar  misty stepped his way to safety, trailing wisps of smoke and flame.  “I told you,” Varien smirked as he continued to stride forward. “You will not retreat nor escape.” Nezznar glared at the paladin and called forth a bodyguard of spiders that surrounded him, waving their legs at Varien menacingly. Bob approached the high ground, free from Yeemik’s abjuration for the time being. “Welcome to my ring of fire!” he called out as he cast fireball . The caverns of Ieirithymbul were illuminated as though by a second sun as the flaming sphere burst in the air over the Black Spider and his minions. “Ugh!” Nezznar spat cinders from his mouth and glared hatefully at those party members he could see. “Perhaps you would like to see what the blood of your gnomish friends have wrought? Then so be it!” He spun his spider staff and pointed it to the waters beside the fortress. “From the Pits of the Demonweb, I call you forth, Great Serpent, to drink deeply from the wells of these pour souls!” There was movement beneath the waters and then an immense creature broke the surface, sending a rippling wave of water in all directions. The gargantuan creature looked like a giant snake, only a third or less of its size breaching the water, supported by eight powerful legs that appeared long enough to reach the bottom of the underground reservoir. The creature’s great head lolled back and forth as it regarded the adventurers before it. A long, forked tongue, dripping with venom, slithered out from the creature’s widening jaw. Its eyes remained locked on the adventurers as its jaws unhinged to a horrible angle. The creature began to move toward them.