April 10, 2039

Aaron looked over at the other three Dragonkin. “I guess they aren’t too bad if you took out two of them in a one minute conversion.”

William nodded. “They are not bad at all if you can slow them. A cold spell that I have works great for that. They don’t have much armor or hit points, but they are fast and poisonous. You and I will be splitting the spider silks. Leather is great and all, but I want to make stuff that I can wear.”

“Fair enough. Let’s go kill some spiders.” Using the same strategy, Mark would creep into the cave until he found another spider. Then, come racing out with a spider rushing after him. This spider had an arrow sticking out of its thorax.

As soon as it got out of the cave, William cast his cold spell on it. Aaron slashed at the spider for 4 damage. A blow from Karion’s ax finished it off. This same process worked for the next three spiders as well.

Mark came back out of the cave and waved everyone in. They all walked through the narrow cave passage until it opened up into an open room about the size of a baseball field.

The group walked over to the right side of the tunnel to the cave entrance. As they spread out, Aaron’s tail hit against the wall. As soon as it left the surface of the wall, Aaron got a pop up.

Surface webbing disturbed. You have recovered 1 spider silk.

Aaron opened his mouth to mention this when he heard a thump. Then, a red 2 flashed before his eyes and a green 2 as well. Over the speakers in his helmet, he heard Marie curse in surprise.

Aaron was never one to say that he was arachnophobic. The next few moments may have changed that perception a small amount. When he whipped his head to the right, there was a softball sized black spider standing on and with it’s fangs in his shoulder. A bright green skull icon appeared next to to wooden shield icon.

Letting out a startled scream, he smacked the spider off of his shoulder with the hilt of his sword. The larger spider flew off into the wall before bouncing off to the floor. Almost immediately, William has hit it with his cold spell. An arrow stuck it right before Karion swung his ax at the spider. Even slowed, it was able to move aside.

Aaron managed to slash the spider for 5 points of damage before another arrow finished off the spider. A moment later, another green 2 appeared in front of Aaron’s eyes before fading away.

Karion looked up at the ceiling holding his ax at the ready “What the fish was that? We have hunted here before and I’ve never seen one of those.”

Another green 2 flickered across Aaron’s eyes as William started talking about it. “Well, there was that patch the other day. They could have just added them I guess.”

Aaron winced as another green 2 appeared. This dropped his hit points down to 32. “It poisoned me. I bumped into the wall and got a message about disturbing the spider webs. I even got an extra spider web for it before that thing landed on me.”

William had just stood up from looting it. “It has spider webs too. This might be a way for us to speed up our web gathering. I want to try something. Kari, be ready if it works.”

With one last green 2, the green skull faded away.Karion glared at William. “You can just drop the Kari bit before I have to teach you some manners.” He tapped his ax to emphasize his point.

William’s hands stayed to glow a different shade of blue than when he used his cold based magic. It appeared as if a soap bubble formed around William. The bubble shimmered for a moment and then faded to near invisible.

“Have you seen these yet?” William turned to ask Aaron. After a shake of the head, William continued.”Come over and tap me on the shoulder.”

When Aaron reached out to touch William, his hand stopped about six inches away from Williams shoulder. Suddenly, a rock slammed into and bounced off of the magical shield by William’s head. William flinched back and almost fell backwards.

“Dark! Come on!” Karion laughed at his cousins and leaned on his ax. “ I warned you. Let’s get this rolling we only have about 15 minutes left.”

Walking over to the wall, William signaled Karion and swept his hand through a heavily webbed section on a rocky outcrop of the wall. Karion raised his ax high overhead. Just like last time, a softball sized black spider leapt out of a hole on the ceiling and towards William. Seeing the spider, William took a small step to the left.

The spider had been falling towards William’s shoulder, but his movement put it off course. It ended up ricocheting off the shield and down to the right.

Karion swept his ax down as the spider bounced. The blade connected to the spider mid flight and stayed with the beast until the both crashed into the floor.

As Aaron watched, the ax drove the spider into the ground and cleaved the spider in two. The spider erupted in a fountain of brightly colored confetti of red, green, yellow, and purple.

All four of the dragonkin exclaimed in surprise and excitement. Only Aaron seemed surprised. Karion shook some of the confetti off of his hands, then raised his ax above his head. “Critical!” He yelled, drawing out the last syllable for a few breaths.

Aaron just shook his head. “I’m sorry, I’m so confused. Why are you talking about fish? What’s with saying dark? What is with the confetti?”” He asked pointing to the dissolving piles of brightly colored paper.

The other three stared at him blankly. Mark shook his head then asked for the group. “Huh?” At a loss, Aaron tried to explain by pointing to the last pile of confetti on the ground. “When you hit the spider and it burst like a piñata. The confetti was everywhere. You said dark when he threw the rock at your shield and when the spider..”

Aaron trailed off at the blank stares he was getting. Holding up his index finger in game, he tapped the mute button on the helmet to ask Marie. “You saw it to right? Why didn’t they see it?

Marie thought for a moment. “It was probably the setting that you changed. It was for gore and profanity.”

Nodding his head, Aaron flipped on the microphone. “Sorry about that I think I figured it out. I changed the gore and profanity into the negatives. So, I guess they replaced them with something more entertaining.”

Karion looked at his ax. “When I got that crit, you saw confetti instead of the blood?” William corrected him. “I’m pretty sure that bugs have ichor.” Mark smiled broadly. “Spiders are arachnids. Not bugs.” Karion closed his eyes and growled softly.

Aaron looked around the cave. There were a few more of the spiders that Mark had been pulling for them. Aaron was relieved that most of the terminology had remained the same when the other Dragonkin didn’t give him more blank stares when he mentioned that phrase.

The group had stood by the section of wall that William said made a good spot since the spiders would not respawn here. Then, Mark would go out and shoot one of the spiders and pull it towards the group.

To save time we decided to have William be the main looter. He had announced that we were up to 35 of our 40 spider silk goal.

After the next spider had been killed and looted, Mark came back to talk with the group. “So there is what I assume is a webbed up body in that nook over there. Have either of you ever noticed that before?” He directed the last question to William and Karion.

After they both shook their heads negative, he went on. “There are probably a few respawns in the tunnel on the way out. We only have about 5 minutes left before we need to head back to the shop. Do you want to head out or try for the webbed up body?”

Karion pointed his ax at the body in the nook. “I think we need to check it out. There seems to be new things going on since the patch. First, those black spiders ambushed us and now this. Uncle James will understand if you are a few minutes late. We will all go back and report in.”

“I still have a bit of time before I need to log off. Let’s go see what’s in the corner.” Two more spiders were cleared away and opened the path to the webbed up body.

Mack’s image popped up on the bottom right. Clicking the icon, Aaron heard his brother’s voice. “Hey Aaron, I’m here at the gate. Where are you at? “

“We are finishing up in a spider cave. We found a webbed up body that we are going to check out before headed out.”

“I’ll join you. I have nothing better to do for a while. Sirius and I will be there in a bit.” Mack’s picture faded.

Mark came running back with the last spider following him. It was immediately slowed with a cold spell. An additional blow from everyone in the group finished off this spider as well.

“That’s the last of them. Let’s check it out. Could be a new quest!” Mark ran over to the body and kneeled next to it. As the rest of the group gathered around, he started to laugh. “It’s like skinning!” He pulled out his skinning knife and started to cut along a series of lines that only he could see.

With a startled cry, Mark jumped back from the body. He was not fast enough to avoid the two foot long leg that burst out of the cocoon and slashed him down the length of his right leg, His health plummeted down 30%.

Mark pulled out his bow as he scrambled to his feet and William’s hands were starting to glow orange. Two more of the wickedly sharp legs had pulled themselves out of the cocoon.

An arrow thudded into the hole where Mark had sliced open the cocoon before it bounced harmlessly to the floor. Suddenly, the cocoon burst into flames as the giant spider pulled it’s body loose. As it came free everyone got a look at the spider.

It stood two and a half feet tall with a body the size of two basketballs side by side. It was dark brown in color with bright red spots on it’s back. It had two three inch fangs sticking out of it’s small mouth. Aaron could see the flames reflected in it’s eyes.

Suddenly remembering his breath weapon, Aaron leaned forward and breathed fire on the spider. Apparently he was not the only one and a spray of acid came from Karion. Aaron watched the fire engulf the spider. A bright red 4 hit the spider, then a 2 as the fire washed over it.

Glancing up at it’s heath bar, Aaron saw it was at 95%. Both his own and Karion’s breath weapon plus a fire spell had only done 5% damage. It had, however, burned away the cocoon and freed the spider.

Karion rushed forward with his ax raised high. An arrow whizzed past him before he got to the spider. This arrow managed to sink into the spider, but didn’t seem to do much good.

Karion was swinging his ax downward when the spider leapt at him. It stabbed it’s two front legs into his waist. Then, pulled itself on top of him and sank it’s fangs into his chest.

An icicle shattered against the spider and knocked another few percent points off of it’s health bar. Aaron slashed at the spider on Karion, but only did 2 damage. It stabbed Karion a few more times as it scuttled up his chest and onto his shoulder.

It kept off of Karion’s shoulder, straight at William. They had been using the same technique to get the black ambush spiders, so William still had his magical shield up, the spider struck the shield and did bounce off of it like it’s smaller cousins had. However, the shield winked out of existence with a faint pop.

The spider whirled on William and crouched down for a pounce at the wizard. As soon as it turned it’s back on him, Mark jumped on it and backstabbed it with two curved daggers. With two puffs of confetti, the spider’s health dropped down to 85%.

As the spider whirled around, William finished his spell and the familiar slowing cold took effect. Aaron ran in and hit the spider with his dull sword. A red 3 fell away from the spider.

Ignoring Aaron entirely, the spider jumped past him and sank it’s fangs into Mark’s leg. Karion ran over and slammed his ax into the spider. It’s health dropped to 80%.

Karion accomplished his goal and drew the spider’s attention. It lunged forward and bit Him on the leg for his troubles. His health fell to 5%.

Aaron heard someone yell out from the cave entrance. “Fass!” A huge black dog charged in so fast that Aaron could barely track it’s motions.

The dog grabbed the spider by the leg and shook it violently. After two seconds of shaking, the dog tossed the dog tossed the spider towards the cave entrance. It tumbled across the floor before stopping itself and standing up again.

A crossbow bolt sprouted from the spider’s side as the dog lunged at the spider. A man with short crop top hair wearing dark brown leathers and a dark grey cloak wielding a long bat with a steel cap on the end.

He swung the bat underhand, almost like a golf swing. He connected with the spider and sent it flying into the wall. It fell to the floor and did not rise again.

Turning towards the group, Mack pointed the bat at Aaron. “That is how it’s done!” At that point, the poison did another round of damage and Karion fell to the ground dead.