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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amaroq" data-source="post: 1274842" data-attributes="member: 15470">Issue #3: The Spider-Eye Goblins. Episodes 8, 9, and 10After a long day of shopping, we all converge back at the inn for another fabulous meal. As we eat, Fox stops by the table to ask, “Have you seen Randall or Reginald?”Chuck answers, “Yes, we saw them last night.”Fox just shakes his head at this news. “I’m getting worried,” he says. “No one has seen them since they went to bed last night.”We look around the table, but everyone shakes their head. Miriel says, “Between us, we were all around the town today, and none of us saw them.”Fox looks increasingly distraught. He sits at our table, and tells us a long involved story of how he adopted the three children after their parents were killed by rat men, and how they are dearer to him than anything. We are sympathetic, but not sure how to help, and frankly, it looks as though Fox is not sure what more he can do, either. Near the end of his tale, Goldpetal arrives, the last member of our company to return.  Fox stands up to leave the table, and Miriel asks for contributions towards the cost of the healing potions. Paks, Chuck, Stone, and Goldpetal all chip in, and Paks withdraws most of the money from the new party fund. As they’re giving her the money, Randall staggers through the front door of the inn. The teenager looks exhausted and bruised, like he’s been beaten up. “What happened to you?” exclaims Fox, and we all gather around to hear his answer. In a sniffling, quavering voice, Randall tells his tale. “Me and my brother, after hearing your story, decided to go check out the tower themselves. We thought it was safe, ’cause you’d killed everything. We pretended to go to bed, and then snuck out the window.” He can’t even look Fox in the eye as he says this.“Anyway,” he continues, “We got down there but it was still dark, and cold, and we camped out near the woods to wait for morning. While we were asleep, these strange goblins jumped out of the woods.  They were everywhere, and they grabbed us and tried to drag them into the woods. I fought them off and ran away, but I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t do anything for Reginald. I think he was taken prisoner. Maybe they killed him!”“How many goblins?” asks Goldpetal, his voice calm.“I don’t... I don’t know,” the teenager stammers. “It was dark, and I just have the impression of lots of goblin hands and some goblin voices.”“Were there spiders?” asks Goldpetal, with a strange look in his eye.“No,” Randall says hesitantly, “But… they weren’t exactly normal goblins, either. What I could see of them looked strange, leathery, and distorted.”“Where was this?” asks Paks.“We were camped in a small clearing near the eaves of the forest, right by the tower.”Chuck and Paks exchange glances. Chuck says, “That may have been the exact spot where we camped two nights ago.” Paks nods.“Please,” Fox says, turning to lay his hands across Miriel’s arm. “Please, go rescue Reginald.”Stone doesn’t even respond to him, but stands and marches straight into the kitchen. He grabs cheese and bread, causing the cook some surprise, and then heads straight out the door, walking south down the road.The rest of us, in a babble of voices, begin debating how to go, but we are interrupted by one of the other patrons of the inn. She is a tall woman, wearing only a bikini and a gold-embroidered cloak. She has magnificent red hair, but is otherwise rather loud and unattractive. She introduces herself. “I am Brunhilde Hasenpfeffer. I’ve heard of you, and I couldn’t help but overhear. Might I be of assistance in seeking this lost youth?”Chuck and Fergus look a little dubious, but Paks answers, “Certainly, any help would be appreciated.”“Here, let me provide light,” the newcomer offers. She gestures, and a glowing point appears on her shoulder. We have light.“Let’s go,” Miriel says, and we step outside the inn.  As Brunhilde steps out of the Laughing Ogre, a large black bat swoops down to land on her shoulder. When we look askance at this, she says, “Allow me to introduce Fledermaus, my bat familiar.”We do not immediately begin down the road, as we begin a discussion of how and whether to make use of the horses. Finally, Fergus rides with Goldpetal, Miriel rides with Paks, and Brunhilde and Chuck ride alone.  It takes us a half an hour of hard riding to catch Stone, but after that he keeps up with the horses easily, on foot. Even with the horses, it takes us about five hours to reach the area where Reginald was taken, so it’s the middle of the night when we draw near to the place. “Let’s stop here,” Paks says, when we reach the point at the road from which we have been directed to search westward. “We should assess the situation before walking into it.”Brunhilde’s magical light has long since expired, so Chuck asks, “Let’s have some light.” “No,” Fergus says quickly, with a shake of his head. “It would reveal us more than revealing anything to us.”“I’ll send Fledermaus to look for any large creatures in the area,” says Brunhilde.Goldpetal, who sees well in the dark, studies the ground for tracks leading from the road. “I don’t see anything here,” he says. “Just the foot prints of the two boys, heading towards the woods.” When the bat returns, he and Brunhilde converse in high squeaks for a moment. She tells us, “Fledermaus says that there are no large creatures in the area.”“Let’s go, then,” Chuck says. We move stealthily through the woods to the campsite. The clearing is vacant, but we can see a spot where the boys lit a fire. Stone, who has excellent night vision, inspects the area of the campsite, but from his silence, we can tell that he finds nothing unusual. Chuck and Goldpetal study the ground for tracks. “There’s goblin prints all around,” Chuck says.“Yes,” adds Goldpetal. “In the campsite, the tracks are so jumbled, I can’t even estimate how many there might have been.” Chuck checks around the perimeter of the campsite. “Here,” he says. “Somebody was dragged this way, I can see the marks his heels made.” He points west, directly into the heart of the wood. “The tracks go straight into the woods, and should be very easy to follow.”“Can you tell how many there were?” asks Fergus.“Not really,” Chuck gives a quick shake of his head. “It could be anywhere from eight to twenty.”Paks says, “Here, let’s tie up the horses at the campsite. They would be more hindrance than help in these woods.” Chuck nods, and Paks begins tying the horses.“Goblins can see at night,” Fergus warns“Most of us can’t,” says Stone. “We’ll need light.”“We could use that hooded lantern,” Paks calls, from where she is tying the horses, “To illuminate only the path, so as not to completely destroy our night vision.”Miriel asks, “Would spiders approach the light?”Goldpetal shakes his head. “Spiders should be repelled by fire, so I’d suggest carrying torches.”Stone grows impatient at the constant discussion, and begins heading into the woods. Paks and Miriel follow, and the remainder of the party strings out behind them. Goldpetal, having good night vision, works his way to the front. Miriel offers to carry the lantern, so as to free the others for carrying their weapons. Brunhilde is behind her and Chuck brings up the rear. Paks asks Brunhilde to send Fledermaus out ahead, which she agrees to, and he flies about 100 yards ahead. Everywhere we look in the woods we see spiders. Little ones, tarantula sized ones, basketball sized ones like the ones that attacked us before. They all stay away from the light, which shines on hundreds of eyeballs. It is very spooky. Even Fledermaus feels it, and he is so unhappy being any distance from us that Brunhilde lets him come back and settle on her shoulder. As we walk, Fergus says again, “We should discuss what we’re doing before moving on.”“We’re attacking the goblins, and rescuing a child,” says Chuck, impatience clear in his voice.“What they have done to us?” asks Fergus.“Kidnapped a child,” says Paks.“We follow the gods,” Miriel says imperiously, “And it therefore follows that we hate the twisted spawn of the Titans. We have to rescue the child, so there is really nothing to discuss.”The argument continues in hushed tones at the back of the party as we march, but Fergus is unable to convince anyone. Those who are willing to answer him cannot understand why he is acting as though we are proposing an attack on innocent humans; he appears unable to see a moral difference between the divine races, humans, elves, dwarves, and their like, and the spawn of the Titans. Eventually the discussion trails off into silence, though Fergus appears disturbed.Up front, Goldpetal is tracking the goblins. After about an hour and a half, the woods we are moving through have become very close and dense. Off in the distance we can see a hill, not very clearly. Goldpetal stops at a twenty foot tall wall of web, motioning with his hands for the rest of us to stop. We bump into each other, but there is no major disaster. Goldpetal passes a whisper along our line that we should back up. Upon inspection, we see that the web is almost like a wall, a solid mass of sticky substance that extends off in both directions, and cuts off the path. Apparently, the goblins climbed the trees at this point, as there is clearly no way through the web. “I think we could hack through the web,” suggests Fergus. Brunhilde whispers, “I’d suggest at least drawing our weapons.”Stone says, “I’m gonna try and see what’s on the other side.” Without waiting for debate, the half-orc quickly climbs one of the trees. Beyond the web, and through a few more trees, there is a clearing with a small campfire. The web is clearly a wall around a goblin enclave. The enclave does not contain any structures, but there are several large trees. Stone can see about fifteen goblins, praying to an idol of a spider, with a goblin shaman leading the prayer. The goblins are very strange-looking, even though Stone has seen many goblins before. They have four feet, four arms, and eight eyes – they almost seem to be a mix of spiders and goblins. The goblins are very intent on their worship, and they are all facing away from us, towards the idol on the west side of the clearing. They haven’t noticed us. Stone climbs back down quietly and reports all this to us. “There’s fifteen of ’em,” he whispers, “And a shaman. They’re praying. They have a lot of arms, legs, and eyes, like a spider mixed with a goblin.”“Yuck,” says Paks.Miriel looks to Goldpetal. “Have you ever heard of such creatures?”“No,” answers the elf, who has the most lore of any of us. “I’ve never heard of such goblins, or of a spider-goblin cross-breeding.” “What do we do?” asks Stone.Paks suggests, “Let’s climb the trees, and fire on them with our bows.”“Okay,” Miriel says. “I can bless everyone.”“We’d be vulnerable,” objects Fergus, “To being attacked from below while we’re in the trees. Besides, we don’t know if they have the boy. I think we should not attack them, if they don’t.”“It seems obvious that they do,” Chuck whispers, shaking his head as though unable to see why Fergus doubts it. “We followed the tracks of his being dragged to this point.” Fergus, growing ever more frustrated with our insistence on fighting the goblins, turns to Miriel. “Will you sell me a torch?” he hisses.She looks confused, but says, “Okay.” She hands him a torch, and he drops a silver piece in her palm. He leaves, striding determinedly back down our trail towards the horses. Chuck says, quietly, “Fergus, you fool!” but no one tries to stop the argumentative highlander. When he is gone, we return to planning. “The goblins are on the far side,” Stone says.“Let’s circle around this web,” Brunhilde suggests, “To get closer to them.”Goldpetal nods. “I’ll cast an entanglement to slow the goblins down,” he says.“Right,” says Chuck. “We’ll all hold our fire. Your spell will be the signal to loose arrows.”“I’ll stay here,” Stone says, “To keep a watch, and get them from the rear.” He pulls out his crossbow and begins climbing the same tree a second time. The goblins are still chanting, apparently unaware of our presence, and he gives the rest of us a thumbs-up sign. He watches the goblins with crossbow at the ready, but they are still intent on their ritual and do not seem to hear us moving near them.</blockquote>

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