Felix realized that his Thunderwave had saved him this day.  He didn't understand why the spiders fled, but he was too tired and too hurt to care.  He collapsed into the cave wall at the entrance to the small tunnel, prepared his healing spell, and once ready, cast it on himself.  Whether it was because he was too tired or in too much pain, the healing spell seemed to have little effect in helping him, though it DID help him.

---

Not surprisingly, my cure wounds healed the minimum possible HP:  12:46, Today: Felix Takmarin rolled 3 using 1d8+2 ((1)).

Kursak placed a hand on Frilia's shoulder as he looked around and saw that the foes had all been put to rest (for now). He asked for the Queen's blessing on Frilia in the inevitable event that more of Lolth's minions arrived.

With some surety that they had a moment of respite, he set his mind to finding what had happened to Isolde. He wasn't sure exactly where the Queen's messenger had been when she was attacked, but he knew she'd been nearer to the entrance than he had been himself.

---

(Vigilant Blessing on Frilia)

Rain jumped up and down as the spiders fled into dsrk holes, the tabaxi swinging long after they were gone. By the time she stopped they were long gone. She stood there for a few moments, then screamed a feral cry.

"BLOODY SPIDERS....I HATE SPIDERS!" She snorted as she went to searching the alcove from where they came.

---

<OOC: Now the spiders are gone, gonna search the area.>

::"Bloody stupid human! He almost got me with his spell!"::

::"Are you all right?"

::"I will be, no thanks to him!

Reassured by her familiar well being, as the tresym came back to perch itself on Frilia's backpack and lick her wounds, Frilia was peering in the darkness where the dangerous Ettercap had disappeared.

"I don't about you 'Sak, but I'd prefer not to leave enemies behind us. We should hunt and destroys the ettercap before is starts hunting us again.

Frilia went hunting for her arrows, picking those that were reusable.

Felix sagged to the floor, his heart pounding in his chest.  The healing spell he cast on himself was but a trickle of power, but it was enough to ease his wounds a fraction nonetheless.

Kursak looked towards the entrance for Isolde, but the little raven was nowhere to be seen.  Nor could her presence be felt in his mind -- only that disturbing emptiness where she had once been.

Frilia set about finding her errant arrows.  Some were gone for good, and others had shattered as they struck rock rather than enemy flesh, but she found two intact.

A primal scream from the southwestern tunnel alarmed everyone, but a moment later, Rain's voice gave reason for the shout.  ""BLOODY SPIDERS....I HATE SPIDERS!"

Snatching up her torch once more, the ranger set about exploring deeper into the tunnel.  The tunnel bent around to the right, where it split into three different directions.  The first was a little hollow to the left, barely more than a few feet into the wall.  Inside were several dessicated bodies -- and parts of bodies, all covered in webbing.



OOC: Give me a perception roll if you want to look closer...

Directly ahead, there were two paths to choose from: left and right.  The left path would be a very tight fit, and the right path looked much easier.

Shera felt around in her pack until she found a torch and her light. She carefully set it ablaze and held it out in front of her being cautious not to let it burn her. She scanned the area around her being sure to look in ever direction she could think of especially up.

---

09:31, Today: Secret Roll: Shera Draxalia rolled 16 using 1d20 with rolls of 16.  Perception roll.

Hannah let out a long sigh of both relief and exhaustion. She wiped the sweat from her brow and began slowly trudging after Rain. "I'll follow you Rain. I don't think anyone should be alone in this cave"

Rain nodded at the offer, and walked deeper into the cave. The first branch was shallow and yielded nothing. The second had several bodies and though she shuddered, she looked closer at them.

<OOC: Rain rolled 17 using 1d20+4 with rolls of 13.  Perception check .>

She then came to a fork, looking left and right, she chose right first

Shera's torch flared to life, illuminating the cave around her.  The tips of some of the larger stalactites loomed overhead like teeth waiting to devour her, but the torchlight failed to reach all the way up into the ceiling.

In the southwest tunnel, Rain and Hannah squeezed into the righthand fork in the tunnel.  The rock walls narrowed as they pressed into the tunnel, until they had turn sideways to fit through.  Eventually the tunnel curved around to the left, and another recess in the rock wall revealed dozens of more corpses, all bound in spider-web cocoons.  As Rain moved her torch around, the torchlight glittered off hundreds of coins scattered through the webbing.  Copper, gold, silver, and even some white platinum could be seen strewn through the stacks of bodies.

OOC: Updated this corner of the map here:
https://i.ibb.co/C0CqkXB/Ettercaps-Cave-SWTunnel.png

How much time are you going to spend (if any) collecting coins?

Kursak looked at the beasts that lie between himself and Klaven, going through the corpses in his mind of which ones had fallen at the start of that scuffle, and which had come later. He could not pinpoint which of the spiders it might have been that had sent Isolde back to their Queen, and that made him curious. Curious of things that now was not the time to ponder. Atonement would have to be made, as well as sacrifice, to bridge the realms of life and death to connect to Isolde's spirit once more, to draw her back to the material plane.

Assuming the Night Mother saw him as a companion worthy of her company, still. An assumption he had no right to make.

As Kursak turned to follow Frilia in her search for the ettercap, Kursak was reminded of Klaven's cowardice and his readiness to acknowledge the fact, and some pieces began falling in place as he thought about the order death among the arachnid corpses in that area. He closed his eyes as he muttered a prayer to the Raven Queen, and as he opened them again, the whites of his eyes were black and the center of those dark orbs was a small, white mask. [private to dm: effect of Thaumaturgy]

As Felix collapsed to the ground, recovering from his wounds, Kursak's attention was drawn toward him. The goliath rapidly blinked his eyes, squeezed them shut and then shook his head before he opened them again and his eyes were back to normal. He then knelt down and tended to Felix's wounds, then helped Felix back to his own feet, and then left to accompany Frilia.

Use Healer on Felix, restoring 7 HP
00:18, Today: Kursak rolled 7 using 1d6+6.  Healer's Kit Healing (Felix). – [roll=1663910303.58246.365861]

Rain squeezed through and knelt down, her eyes going wide at the hoard of coins within the area.  Grabbing a handfull of gold and platinum, she looked at Hannah with a smile. "Grab some and put it in a pouch - we can come back for the rest later."

Grabbing an empty pouch, she filled it with the gold and platinum, and a second pouch for the others. "Come....let us get back to the others....they may need our skills."

She then begins making her way back.

---

<Moving her tinderbox and spider venom sacks to her backpack, she will fill the pouches with platinum and gold coins>

After a quick search, Rain managed to find a small scattering of platinum pieces ((4 pp)), almost 12 pounds of gold ((594 gp)), a slightly larger pile of silver pieces ((640 sp)), and a smattering of copper ((30 cp)).

---

If you have a sack, it can hold 30 lbs of... whatever.  There are roughly 26 lbs of coins here.  A belt pouch can hold about 6 lbs of material.  Let me know what you're taking.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:46, Fri 23 Sept 2022.

Rain looked at Hannah. "See if anyone has a sack....if not, i need a few more pouches - i may need about three of them."

---

<OOC: I have no sack, so pouches it will have to be, unless someone else has one.>

Within moments, Rains pouches bulged with the weight of coins.  They dragged at her belt as she rehung them.

---

OOC: You now have 600 coins in your pouches.  I've added these to your dndbeyond character sheet.

Anything else you'd like to do?

Anyone else?

Hannah's jaw dropped at the sight of rain's coin pouches, stuffed so full they looked like they would burst. "Holy shit. I don't think we'll ever need any more coins... like, ever!"

Putting the retrieved arrows in her quiver, the gnome fighter regrouped with the others, centered by the goliath. Seeing Rain with her bulging pouches, she went to the treasure cache and picked up as much of the remaining coins she could, starting with the higher denominations.

Rain smiled at Hannah's words, and nodded as Frilla went to the coin hoard. "Get everyone - lets divide it evenly. This is heavy enough, and i want to focus on shooting things."

She makes her way to the others, and if clear, she explains the situation, then starts dividing the coins.

After the coins are divided, she smiles. "I'm looking in the others....who's coming?" Without waiting, she went towards the next alcove
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:47, Mon 26 Sept 2022.

The western-most tunnel was longer and larger than the previous tunnel.  Rain crept along, her torchlight flickering across the walls.  The first chamber she encountered was empty, save for a small runoff of water which seeped from a hole in the west wall to form a pool a few inches deep and barely five feet across.  The chamber was supported by a central stalagnate, and a second tunnel branched off to the north.

The ranger, followed by the paladin Hannah, heading into the northern tunnel, and found themselves in what must have been the abominations'... "nesting ground" was really the only word which could be used here.  Long strips of purple bark and thick purple vines are strewn about the floor, caught up in various clumps of webbing.

A large stone blocked the entrance to a small chamber off the larger one, but the tabaxi's keen eyes spotted the opening without issue.  The chamber within contained more webbing-wrapped corpses.  As before, webbing was thick across the floor, and within the webs, more coins could be found.

The tunnel continued beyond the main chamber, wrapping back around to join up with the main cavern once more, but in the tunnel, Rain spotted a difference in the texture of the floor to the remainder of the tunnel.  [Private to Rain: It looks suspiciously like the covering the trapdoor spiders in the wildwood used.]

---

OOC: Found in this chamber: 422 copper, 48 silver, 184 gold, and 20 platinum, as well as 1 statuette of carved bone.

Remaining to be explored:
* the northern-most tunnel
* the northeast tunnel where the ettercap fled
* the eastern-most tunnel where Felix & Minho faced a couple of spider-swarms.

Map: to be posted later... my image host is down right now.

The tabaxi searched the first tunnel, and came out soon after, with a sniff. Seeing Hannah go up another, she followed. She saw the nesting ground, and a small hiss escaped her mouth as she looked around. She saw the opening and indicated the paladin to follow, entering the next cavern with the corpses, she shook her head. “These spiders have been busy!” She muttered.

She then saw the coins.

She looked at Hannah. “We need a pack in here….gather these coins. There’s enough for us to buy our own town!” She walked around then paused, tilting her head, she crouched and felt the ground. She looked At Hannah and whispered. “There’s a trap door here - from the spiders. Be ready!”

Getting her dagger, she pried it open

As soon as her dagger touched the surface of the trap door, it exploded outward and a giant trapdoor spider attacked.

OOC: And we'd back into initiative.  Small combat this time, unless anyone else hears the commotion and comes running -- if anyone other than Rain/Hannah wants to get in on this, give me a perception roll (DC:9) to work out what's happening.

---

	Init	AC	HP	Conditions
Hannah	17	19	16/16	Shield of Faith
Rain	5.18	15	16/16
Giant Trapdoor Spider	5.16	?? [Secret to DM: 14]	??/?? [Secret to DM: 26/26]

Resources used:
Hannah: 0 javelins [Secret to DM: / 3 remaining]
Hannah: 4 points Lay on Hands [Secret to DM: / 6 remaining until Long Rest]
Rain: 5 arrows, 2 recovered [Secret to DM: / 12 remaining]

Rain edged over to the trapdoor, hoping she was wrong, but expecting danger.  So when it exploded into action, she dropped to the floor, the dagger in her hand thrusting up and finding flesh as it moved forward, she felt it's momentum cut. "Take that....BLOODY SPIDER!" she screamed

---

<OOC: Attack using dagger

Rain rolled 26 using 1d20+6 with rolls of 20.  attack - dagger. <CRITICAL>
Rain rolled 10 using 2d4+4 with rolls of 3,3.  damage - dagger.

Bonus Action - None>

Hannah leapt past the Tabaxi in front of her and swung her enormous sword at the trapdoor spider.

---

14:44, Today: Hannah Demsersk rolled 19 using 1d20+6 ((13)). attack roll

14:46, Today: Hannah Demsersk rolled 11 using 2d6+4 ((6,1)). damage roll

Before Rain had a chance to react, the mail-clad form of Hannah had pushed her aside and swung that huge greatsword in a vicious arc.  The blade carved a deep cut in the spider's body, and it recoiled in pain, screetching and hissing as it did so.

Rain then swept in low with a brutal cut along its flank with her dagger.  Reddish-black blood gutted from the wounds in a spray that decorated walls, ranger, and paladin alike.  The spider pushed forward into the tunnel, seemingly too large to fit, but doing so regardless, and bore its fangs down on the armoured form of Hannah.  The paladin felt the fangs scrape across the outside of her armour, but the light of Bahamut still enshrouded her form, and the fangs failed to penetrate.

OOC: 15:14, Today: Dungeon Master rolled 17 using 1d20+5 ((12)).  Bite vs Hannah misses.

---

	Init	AC	HP	Conditions
Hannah	17	19	16/16	Shield of Faith
Rain	5.18	15	16/16
Giant Trapdoor Spider	5.16	?? [Secret to DM: 14]	-21/?? [Secret to DM: 5/26]

Resources used:
Hannah: 0 javelins [Secret to DM: / 3 remaining]
Hannah: 4 points Lay on Hands [Secret to DM: / 6 remaining until Long Rest]
Rain: 5 arrows, 2 recovered [Secret to DM: / 12 remaining]

Not letting up, Hannah swung again, putting pressure on the spider.

---

15:24, Today: Hannah Demsersk rolled 22 using 1d20+6 ((16)). attack roll

15:25, Today: Hannah Demsersk rolled 14 using 2d6+4 ((5,5)). damage

And with that, Hannah's greatsword cleaved through air and spider alike, slicing into the spider's face, bisecting it neatly as it came out the bottom.  The spider sagged in place, partially held up from the ground by the pressure of the walls around its fleshy body.

---

OOC: The spider's dead.

@Frilia @Kursak @Felix @Minho @Shera, what are are you all doing while Hannah and Rain have been exploring the western tunnels?