Cursing, Baliss barks to Lowel to shelter the unarmed folk in the Golden Cockatrice. As Lowel moves to clear out the few lingering customers in the courtyard, Baliss moves toward the kitchen. A grim sight greets the half-orc ranger once he opens the kitchen's swinging door. A massive spider, surely larger than any even Baliss has ever laid eyes on, feasts upon the dying cook. Sprawled across a long wooden chopping counter, and pinned beneath the bloated hairy body of a spider the size of a bear, the cook spots Baliss from across the kitchen and silently tries to mouth, "Save me." Instead of words, however, a font of blood gushes from a fresh rip in the human cook's throat as the spider tears at the man's flesh and swallows a hearty chunk whole. At the sound of the door swinging open, the spider turns its head to calmly regard the intruder. Though the creature has the body of a spider, Baliss sees that the spider has a mangy, filthy wolf head filled with a maw of sharp canines.
The spider jumps down from its prey sprawled across the chopping block, leaving the cook's lifeblood to pump, wasted, from the man's torn throat. With a low growl, the spider fixes its wolf eyes on Baliss and begins to creep forward, the talons at the end of each of its eight furry legs clacking on the kitchen's flagstone floor. The wolf spider that had been feasting on the cook opens its maw and hisses at Baliss in a vile language unknown to the half-orc. Bits of the cook's rent flesh drop from the beast's maw as it speaks, its eyes black as death. Getting no response from Baliss, the wolf spider hisses. A scuttling noise on the ceiling alerts Baliss to the presence of a second wolf spider, just as the creature spends a spray of sticky webbing to rain down on him. Baliss darts backward away from the sheet of webbing just in the nick of time.
Kularian moves to aid Lowel in sheparding the people out of the courtyard, Cicer and Taiulleur among them, and is soon joined by both Vaja and Lynnya. From up on her chair, Arden whips out a crossbow and hastily begins maneuvering a bolt into place. Across the bar, Cheal belts on his short sword but otherwise stays seated at his gaming table. Cheal's six cronies do the same, though several of their number exchange worried looks. The yellow dog that had been standing outside by the gold-leafed statue sticks its head inside the festhall and quietly enters, sniffing at the air. Rancid grabs his wand off the bar and gets down from his stool, clearly uncomfortable. As he does, Traven's head swivels and the bouncer shuffles into the festhall a few steps.
Frane, who had been behind the bar with a nasty bit of a flail in one hand, catches sight of the creature terrorizing his cook and gasps, "By all that's Holy! Errol, spare us!" His eyes wide, Frane adjusts his grip on his flail and moves forward to engage the wolf spider in the kitchen. Seeing the spider on the ceiling drop webbing in an attempt to catch Baliss, Frane opts for the kitchen's closer door and moves to the doorway, swinging his flail in an arc as he seeks the best place to plant the spiked ball of the weapon on the spider that had been feasting on the cook. Frane swings the flail forward and the weapon strikes the wolf spider on the creature's furry exoskeleton. With a crunch, the flail embeds in the spider's flesh, dealing 10 points of damage.
Bird, the wisest of either himself or Phud, launches himself and lights on a rafter high up on the old warehouse ceiling of the festhall. Safe from his perch but out of reach of Phud, Bird observes everything that goes on. For his part, Phud grabs his weapon and moves into the common room to do his duty, just as Rhys jumps down from his stool at the bar and moves to stand behind Baliss in the kitchen doorway. Just before Rhys makes it to the kitchen, a sheet of thick ropy webbing flies down from above inside the kitchen and nearly traps Baliss. Rowan also gets down from his barstool, but stands his ground and prepares to ward off any unfriendly advances with his trusty walking staff.
The wolf spider on the flagstone floor of the kitchen turns its maw to the side and snaps at Frane. Unarmored, Frane is an easy target and the spider's sharp canines sink into the tender's left side for 6 points of damage. As Frane cries out in horror and pain and the gaping wound in his side, the spider spits out the fresh meat as if unsavory and scuttles forward on the web covering the flagstone floor in the kitchen, to better get at Baliss and Rhys.
The second spider, the one that shot the webbing at Baliss, drops on a thick rope of silk to the floor and, leaping on mighty legs over Frane's head, darts into the festhall. Frane, startled by the second spider's aggression, swings his flail at the creature but misses as it moves past him. Rhys, however, has better aim and reflexively jabs his spear at the second wolf spider. The pointed steel tip of Rhys's stick finds an exposed spot between two pieces of thick carapace in the spider's exoskeleton. Rhys feels his spear meet flesh, as the weapon deals 5 points of damage. The spider spares not even a backward glance at Rhys. The creature is utterly fixated on Rancid and anxiously clacks the sharp teeth in its mandible when it spies the thin fop of a human.
Wyleck, who for long seconds had been biding his time and already had a stone planted in his sling, fires at the second wolf spider just as soon as it appears in the festhall. The stone flies wide, missing the spider, and instead sharply hits the wooden lintel above the kitchen door. From inside the kitchen, Frane jumps at the sound of rock hitting wood.
Initiative
Wyleck 21
Dog 18
Baliss 17
Kularian 12
Arden 11
Cockatrice NPCs
Rhys 9
Phud 7
Rowan 4
Wolf Spiders 3
