Sterling was not present for this session, so I NPCed Seamus in his absence. Sal rejoined the group for this session; his character has ended his association with the Black Wolves.
With Nirreh back in the group, the party put her to work right from the start, leading them through the network of spider tunnels with her +13 bonus to Nature checks. They successfully navigated the tunnels, finding themselves in a room with a fountain of black water, a number of dire rats and undead, rotten-looking beasts called corpse rats drinking and wallowing in the water. Members of the group's first party recognized this room. The rats were quickly engaged, and they made a point of boxing the party in the cramped spider tunnel. Seamus took a lot of punishment in this encounter, going through all 3 of his combat healing surges. The corpse rats attacked in swarms, which proved difficult for most of the party besides Amnon to affect with their resistance to more focused assaults like melee and ranged attacks. Before long, the rats were defeated, but not before they infected Seamus with filth fever. Between the surge lost to the fever and the 2 surges Seamus had to spend to raise his health, Seamus was left with very few surges.
DM's Note: As I did not have Seamus' number of surges as of when we ended last session available, I figured on him having 9/12 at the start of this adventure. He spent 2 getting his health back up after combat and 6 in the above encounter, leaving him with 1/12 - he was granted an additional surge by Amnon, giving him a total of 2/12 surges moving forward. Sterling - if Seamus had more surges than 9/12 in your notes as of last session's end, please let me know and we'll adjust the number he has accordingly.
The party then went about exploring the area - the room they were in only had one usable exit; there had been another, but a cave-in of large rubble had blocked it off. A flight of stairs led up, and the party took them - they emerged into a mausoleum, finding it to be morning outside. It seemed their navigation of the spider tunnels took several hours, long enough for night to pass and come back around to day again. They left the mausoleum, finding a graveyard and the barest ruins of a burnt-down shack at the south. To the southeast, they could see Cairnmoor in the distance. After some nostalgia by the members of the original party, they went about exploring - and Nirreh's exploration drew her right into the trap of a doomspinner spider. The spider drug her down into the network of spider tunnels directly below the surface of the graveyard, and the spiders proceeded to erupt from the ground and attack.
This turned out to be one of the most intense (and enjoyable) encounters thus far, with the spiders providing a solid challenge to the party. Attacking in a group of two doomspinner spiders, giant beasts that use their webbing as a prominent part of their attack, and four deathjump spiders, which the party are previously acquainted with, the monsters put Shivra and Nirreh in trouble early; Nirreh was likely saved only through the use of a well-placed cloud of darkness. One of the doomspinners and two of the deathjumps were decimated by the party - the doomspinner was particularly roughed up by a nasty combined attack from Deckard & Misha.
In the end, the party proved triumphant, at least for the moment, as they drove the spiders back into the tunnels below - tunnels which, as Nirreh had discovered, were full of zombified corpses mummified by webs and used as walking egg sacs by the nefarious spiders. Vorgym sent his lesser planar ally down to scout the tunnels, finding the spiders and a number of these "web mummies" below. With this information in hand, the party decided to head down into the hole and hunt down the spiders rather than let them escape. We stopped there, with everyone poised at the edge of one of the two holes made, ready to head down.
There will not be an extra session this Saturday again, as Traver & Sterling cannot make it, so I'll see everyone again next Wednesday! I still do not have backstories from anyone besides Traver and (technically, anyway) Jordan; please get these to me, as the sooner you do, the sooner I can weave your character's personal plotline into the greater arc of the campaign!
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