Haven: Spiders on the Road to Hope

On May 25th, the recently active adventurers are joined by an older adventurer, Polly the dwarf, in a trip down the road to Hope with the plan being to stumble across the trapdoor spiders and ogres that plague carts on the road.

• Polly (MiM): Level 6 Dwarf Brawler
• Vedison (AdS): Level 5 Gnome Magic-user
• Six (CoB): Level 4 Human Fighter (with gnomish prosthetics)
• Phillip MaKinzey (CoS): Level 4 Elf Cleric of the Resurrection and the Life

Their first day is quiet and they camp at the bridge built a day to the south. During the night, Polly is ambushed by something and punches through his armor and he can feel paralyzing poison that he fights off. He wakes the others, but there is no sign of the attacker.

They continue their journey on the 26th and the day is quiet and pleasant and they pass a merchant cart heading north, happy to see them on the road. On the 27th, however, as they walk they are ambushed by large trapdoor spiders that quickly drag Vedison, Six, and Phillip into their dens. They scrabble at Polly’s armor, but fail to get a grip.

Polly, surrounded by 4 hungry spiders, willingly takes some hits to get to the hole Phillip was pulled into and, punching the spider there, drags Phillip out of the hole where he is able to heal himself. Vedison meanwhile casts a powerful death burst to destroy the spider in the hole with him and pushes out the trap door to join the others. In his hole, Six finds that his axe is hard to swing, but he downs an ounce of invulnerability potion and, completely protected from the spider’s attacks, is free to attack and counterblow in response to incoming attacks, soon fighting his way out.

With the ambush survived, Polly’s rapid punches, though greatly dampened by the spiders’ armor, are death by a thousand paper cuts. Vedison’s spells put them down more quickly, as does Six when he finally gets out of his hole and lays into them with his heavy axe. With the spiders slain, they find a magic ring, a very fine battle axe, and 300 silver coins. They make a safe camp, happy to have survived and looted.

On the 28th, they are on the last leg to Hope when they see more trapdoors on the road ahead. Fearing an encounter with 7 more spiders, they hit the spider holes with a death blast arrow and then Polly and Six proceed to confront and kill the two wounded spiders that emerge. They find that five of the trapdoors were already abandoned. Still, there is loot in the holes and they collect 1100 copper coins, 6 gems, and an electrum statue of Aguluk of 200 coin weight.

They arrive in Hope and find a grateful mayor for their efforts to clear out the spiders. He offers to pay their fare to return on the Midnight Queen, which is departing in the morning, but they choose to go on foot and pay a visit to Osiris stronghold at Ogrefel.

The road home is far less eventful, but they do visit with Osiris and learn that he has been encountering massive skeletons in the southeast with his patrols. On the night on the 31st, they are attacked by ghouls during the night, but quickly deal with them.

Back in the Vale, they sell the statue for its metal value alone and distribute their loot, feeling pretty good about the expedition. Polly levels up.

This new crop of adventurers has gone east into the Clinging Wood, west to the roach tower among the Satyrs, north past the mountains to the northern gnomish villages, and south to the Hope and the coast. What will they be interested in next?