Spiders - the way they move freaks me out. It’s so malevolent - Matt Smith

And the way they eat by liquifying your insides. It's so… evil. - Varya’ Qu

It took nine days to reach the Tabor river after confronting Nancy and her naturalists. It might have gone quicker except for two reasons. Gruffly insisted on dashing off to pan every little creek for gold. And then there was the local fauna and flora. Both grew progressively more aggressive the deeper the group ventured into the GNF.

The team managed to avoided a small pack of forest wolves by killing something that approximated a forest goat leaving the fresh carcus as a distraction. They fled from a level forty five bear. Everything seemed a little too much for them to attack.

Naturally Marko managed to get gored whilst unsuccessfully hunting a level twelve boar requiring rescue by his fellow hunters. It also gave Hank a chance to work on his medical skills. Hank had wanted to join the hunters to gain XP, but as he made ‘more noise than a marching band’ according to Jamie, he tended to be attacked by anything that moved. So he was excluded from hunting duties.

Gruffly had suggested that Sabine do something useful and join the hunters, or better yet forage. Given the shouting match that ensued and the three hours that Gruffly spent unconscious as a result of its decent to punching, Hank suspected that there was rather less of the ‘join the hunters’ and a bit more of the ‘its a woman’s job to pick berries’. Nobody cared to translate and given the thunder clouds circling Sabine for the rest of the day, Hank wasn’t going to risk asking her.

All of which left Fritz and Jamie as the only providers. Hank couldn’t be sure, Jamie had always spoken the version of Compidge Gruffly’s people did to the wee people, but he and Fritz seemed to have hit it off, enjoying the opportunity to hunt together. Hank was sure he caught Fritz speaking at lease once as they came back from a hunt. Not that Fritz spoke in the larger group setting. I was perplexing. He was sure there was more to the silent man than he let on, but there was definitely a reluctance to communicate that transcended his poor grasp of common.

Hank being an avowed carnivore, enjoyed meat, something that Tom and company had expressly forbidden. So Jamie’s success with a bow, and Frit’s with traps gave him a much more sunny disposition. A sentiment seemingly shared by most of the group. Certainly, the others seemed more relaxed, except Gruffly, who seemed to take perverse pleasure in living up to his name.

Sabine resumed herself appointed role of head trainer, pressing everyone into various martial regimes to improve fitness, weapon familiarity and unarmed combat. Hank couldn’t work out if this was due to some form of paranoia or an unhealthy desire to inflict pain. He suspected in the case of Gruffly it was the latter. She was still very angry with him. Either way, her efforts were sufficient to see some slight improvements in his techniques though none of his skills advanced.

Once they reached the Tabor, Gruffly became even less sociable, spending three days fiddling around and trying various spots for gold. Hank, however, became increasingly nervous about his quest timeline. He struggled, attempting to ascertain if the cooling weather was due to the deep and overcast nature of the forest, or the approach of winter. ‘First snow fall’ was an unfortunately imprecise deadline for his quest.

All of which meant that Hank’s efforts to work his way through his books on house building, town sanitation, water systems and establishing strategic defence posts was not as diverting as he had anticipated. They really boiled down to three fundamental aspects, foundations, locations and water. Everything came down to water he decided. Too much, not enough, in the wrong place, poor quality, all of it, a problem.

His efforts at avoiding boredom were not helped by the overall dryness of his books, consequently Hank could only handle reading so much before he needed to change books. Quietly to himself he reflected that he needed a change. He desperately wanted something to do, anything really, he was going a little stir-crazy. On reflection he should have brought some of his more diverse books. But he had reasoned that he needed to know what to look for in a suitable town location and so the books he cried were of key importance. He should have realised sanity was of key importance too.

Even checking his logs was unhelpful. After all, he had done nothing so there was nothing to report. Even checking over Marko after his goring turned into nothing. After all the boar hadn’t pierced his leather jerkin. Which was both annoying and good. He decided to poke around in his settings. Hank choose to remove many of the comprehensive lists. Log lists he regarded as unhelpful or completely useless leaving opting instead for summary displays.

He couldn’t even discuss his reading with others, nobody else was interested in any of those subjects. It was pure slog. So Sabine’s constant desire to spar relieved much of the tedium. Sparing not really being Hanks thing, he could only stomach a certain amount, but it broke up the monotony and promoted a better relationship with the short warrior, who he was coming to like almost as much as he disliked her brother.

She was a much better teacher than Hank first realised, even though she was thirty centimetres shorter than he. It turned out that the hammer brethren were in charge of the martial training program for all Wee people. The hammer brethren, rotated each trainer through all groups to maintain a base standard. Trainers, that Hank came to understand, all reported directly to her. Forcing Hank to think about how she would fit into his town. She was much more important to the wee people than he previously thought, he would need to make allowances.

Late in the morning Gruffly and Marko trekked back to the tents, wide grins on their faces. Sabine, translating their comments, informed Hank that they had found a sizeable amount of gold in the river indicating a gold seam probably existed further back up the river or it’s tributaries, making them keen to move on the next day.

Everyone agreed that following the Tabor back towards the mountains was the best plan. A positive outcome for Hank bringing him one step closer to a settlement. This part of the forest being uncomfortably close to Nancy and the naturalists, he was glad they were moving away. He could only see the crazy old bat getting more and more problematic to deal with in the years ahead so going further inland towards the mountains was all to the good.

Hank was deep in thought when Jamie and Fritz burst into the camp. Fritz, completely out of breath, left Jamie to splutter out. “Run, there’s an arachnid coming. They are way bigger than I thought.”

“How big is bigger?” Hank wanted some kind of guidance. Was it too much to ask for something more meaningful that a vague bigger or smaller type of indication?

“Don't ask stupid questions. It’s coming right for the camp. Run.” Jamie didn’t stop running as he headed for the far side of the camp.

Sabine just dropped the wooden practice axe she currently held and dived for her tent. “Unsel’ nay sprin’ ‘way ‘cause oursel’ die chattel sind ‘ere. Nay’ chattel ’n’ alles croakin’ i’ the trays.”

“Damit, why can’t you short people ever speak common when you are excited.” Hank had no idea what she yelled at the top of her voice.

“We can’t run, all our stuff is here. We won't survive in the woods without it.” Jamie shouted as he slowed his mad dash across the clearing.

“Oh yay. That’s a cheerful thought.” Hank grumped. “It’s not even mid day. I hate mornings.”

“You’ve red all those books. What do they tell you about how to kill an arachnid?” Jamie stopped long enough to ask Hank a sensible question.

“Ahh, not much. Let me think.” A second later, thinking ended as a massive spider crashed out of the woods and into the camp clearing. The spider’s body being bigger than a small horse, with its legs it was over 2 metres tall.

None of which seemed to matter to Sabine. She emerged from her tent with her axe on her back and her hammer firmly grasped in both hands. “Come yah creepiness.” She yelled and then ran for the arachnid. As she moved a prompt appeared inviting Hank to join her team. He didn’t hesitate.

Team Status

Welcome to Sabine’s quick response team. Due to her relevant SKAT there are a number of bonuses available to team members. Some of these will affect you and others won’t. There are many reason for this but most of them can be reduced to the alignment of your SKAT with hers. Your limited level may further impede your ability to understand them.

Temperament :

Intermittent warm fuzzy feelings

Confidence :

At least someone knows what's going on

Formations :

Going where you’re told means you might make it through this

Obedience :

If you do what you're told, bad things won't happen, you may get a reward

Surprisingly the invite seemed to be precisely what everyone else needed to jar them out of shock, though perhaps it was her crazy challenge. Hank could almost see calm return to Jamie and Marko. Perhaps the ‘intermittent warm fuzzy feeling’ was more significant than Hank previously thought. Both Gruffly and Fritz didn’t seem surprised by the almost supernatural return of confidence and calm.

Hank started to thinking, it looked like someone had carefully crafted the phrasing of game bonuses to make foolish people ignore them. The calm gave Hank a short mental breathing space. Which allowed him to remember what Nancy’s book contained concerning the large arachnids. His thoughts naturally turning back to his discussions with Tom on the way to ‘Big Tree’.

But Sabine was quicker than Hank’s thoughts and with a hearty swing her hammer smashed into the spider’s front leg. The result surprising all involved. The spider, as it hadn’t noticed anyone attack it previously. Everyone else, because Sabine’s effort had almost zero effect on the spider.

The spider reacted immediately, turning, it quickly lunged at Sabine, attacking her with its fangs. Sabine, though disappointed in her largely ineffective hammer strike, anticipating a counter attack, was already ducking to the side as the spider struck. Then, with a second swing, hammered one of the fangs.

“Come on. This thing is slow. We can all smack it.” She shouted, which seemed to be all the encouragement the rest of the Wee people required. Gruffly, Marko and Fritz all charged in, hammers swinging, smashing any leg or body part in reach. Fritz, the best Wee fighter after Sabine, circled around the spider so he and Sabine attacked from separate angles. Marko, following suit, circled in the opposite direction.

The spider, focused on Sabine ignoring the others as ineffectual. Hank presumed the creepy giant felt safe, as he, like the other combatants, had absolutely zero chance breaking through its tough exoskeleton.

Hank’s fear receded, his mind finally waking up, he remembered his discussion with Tom. “Attack its joints.” He called out. “It’s carapace is weaker there.” Unfortunately his call was too late, one of the spiders’ legs managed to stab down at an inopportune moment. It had sharp, claw like, protrusions on the end which sliced Marko’s leg open.

Sabine and Fritz were comfortable fighting together and as he swung at one leg so did Sabine at another. She, focusing on the right front leg, landed a third heavy strike, still to small effect. As the spider reared back, certainly a fearsome sight, Hank saw, on the underside, a couple of spears embedded between carapace plates. With surprise, he realised that the spider had been fighting people recently.

Gruffly pulled Marko out of the spider’s reach and back towards the other end of the clearing so that he could bind Marko’s wounded leg. This didn’t seem to amuse the spider much. Without any warning it jumped from the edge of the clearing over to Marko. Once again, it’s leg snapped out in a clear kick and Gruffly flew away from Marko and smacked into a tree with a distinct cracking sound. Gruffly didn’t move.

Jamie, having calmed down, finally found a clear shot and with a grunt of effort feathered an arrow into one of the spiders’ bulbous eyes. In a squeal of pain, the spider turned preparing for a jump.

Fortunately, for both Jamie and Hank, Fritz had been working on one of the legs on the left side, which hadn’t moved out of his admittedly short reach. This time striking the spider, he managed to break the bottom joint on the leg. Consequently the forthcoming jump was more of an unbalanced hop.

Despite his recent training efforts, Hank wasn’t a skilful fighter. It just never came naturally to him. Still, when the enemy is at the gates, you fight. And the spider was just within range of his staff. So, with all of his strength he swung at the spider. Somewhat fortuitously he successfully struck the knee joint Sabine had previously been attacking.

To his immense satisfaction it seemed to damage the joint. Not to the same extent Fritz’s strike had. But enough to mean that two legs were less than fully functional on the same side. Surprisingly, his staff rang as a result of this strike. A piercing sound at the very edge of his hearing range emanated, but it seemed to have a disproportionally large effect on the spider. Again the creature reared up in pain and Hank could see those spears with greater clarity.

In a blink of an eye an arrow joined the spears and then a second. The spider squealed again dropping down to protect itself. Hank, in what he later decided was a monumental act of stupidity, thought that he needed to push those spears in further. So, he dropped his staff and darted under the spider.

Hank felt a sense of accomplishment as he grabbed one of the spears and pushed hard. Unfortunately, there was a reason that this tactic hadn’t worked for whoever had left the spear there before. A leg darted in from the right piercing Hank’s thigh. Hank screamed in pain as the spiders’ exoskeleton scraped along his thigh bone.

The spider pulled back the leg and struck again. The only thing that saved Hank’s life was the wound previously suffered. It obliterated any ability for his leg to support Hank’s weight. He collapsed. The spider leg flashing through fresh air just above Hank’s head.

Things didn’t look good. Three of the team were badly injured, to all intents and purposes, out of the fight. Fortunately two professional melee fighters remained in the fight. Now Hank learned the vast difference, in a fight, between those who are untrained and a level twenty warrior. Fritz’s twelve levels impressed but Sabine and an axe were something quite different to behold.

She might have only been five foot tall but the Wee people’s muscle seemed much more dense than Hank’s. Sabine trained extensively, in both fitness and combat, training, Hank noticed, that gave her a very muscular build, even compared to her fellow Wee miners. So on reflection he should not have been surprised when she managed to leap over twice her height, but he was. Not as surprised as the spider, when, with a shout of effort and an overhead swing of her axe, she lopped off one of the legs at the top joint.

Now the spider struggled. On the left side, the front leg was damaged but usable, the back left leg, perfectly fine. The other two were more problematic. One dragged uselessly along the ground, and the other was missing entirely. Its brain tried to compensate by readjusting the leg locations. Hank almost got stepped on, fortunately rolling away in time.

Sabine landed and with a savage swing sliced of the bottom part of the front left leg. “Tha’s go’ ye doun’ t’ size, ye hasslich spinner” she said and then a repeat swing struck off the feeler on the left side.

Hank decided a collapsing spider was a terrible thing to be stuck under. He rolled again to get out from under it. As he did, he noticed that the spears were still wedged between the front and rear parts of the body. As a last ditch-effort, he guided the butt of a couple of the spears into a slight hollow in-between some rocks. One snapped almost as soon as he got it into place.

The other, obviously better placed, being wedged between a rock and the descending spider, plunged deeply into the spider. There was an almost instant reaction. The spider tried to lift itself up but completely failed. Once again Hank heard the squealing sound it made.

Hank continued to roll out from under the spider. Just in time to see Jamie step forward, continuing to fire arrow after arrow into its eyes. Sabine, intent on destroying the left side of the beast, hewed off the fang at the joint. Fritz still smashed leg joints, but the spider seemed done. And a second later the world agreed.

Team Notice

Congratulations. Your team has killed a Juvenile Arachnid.

Level :

26

Gender :

Male

Reward :

27 xp per team member

Experience awarded is based on the highest level in your team (Sabine level 20)

Hank didn’t know if it was the arrows that had punctured the brain, the spear that had sunk into the abdomen or the shear amount of damage that Sabine and Fritz had inflicted. He didn’t care. Something tugged at his memory. He didn’t read past the first line before dismissing the box. What was it that Tom had told him? Something like, ‘it is very rare to find a single spider’. Now that was a scary thought. Hank wasn’t sure they could survive another.

Hank didn’t care who was supposed to be in charge he took it. “Stop, everyone. It’s dead, but it’s brothers and sisters are not. Tom says they usually travel in groups of between eight and twelve. We can’t beat any more of these beasts. We need to leave in a hurry.”

He looked around before continuing. “Sabine, pack your gear, then Fritz’s. Jamie pack your gear then Marko’s. Both of you, get our stuff and yourselves onto those palfreys.” A relieved Hank noticed they remained tethered and had been unable to flee. “Fritz get over to Marko, make sure he doesn’t bleed out, then attend to Gruffly.”

“And what are you doing mister boss?” Sabine seemed surprised at Hank taking over when the active team affirmed her leadership.

“Working out how to avoid bleeding out myself. I also need to pack my stuff before deciding to tie Gruffly to his pony or not. Either way, we are out of here as quickly as possible.” Hank spoke as he pushed himself up an over to his kit.

They were fortunate that Gruffly had been forcing Marko to take his supplies. Finally Gruffly’s desire to pack the kitchen sink had a positive outcome. Marko had used the time and Gruffly’s medical supplies to bandage himself, largely stopping the bleeding, before passing out. Fritz explained that Gruffly was out cold and couldn’t be woken. He also had a cracked skull and three broken ribs and no medical help nearby. A pointed reminder they were deep in the GNF where safe places were non existent.

“Everyone check your armour and weapons. Put on the best you have.” Sabine stated, thinking of personal protection. “If there is more fighting we won’t have time later.”

After packing some of this favourite salve into his wound and tying his leg back together. Hank left it to the others to get both Gruffly and Marko onto their mounts, nominating himself to look at the state of Gruffly’s pack. As expected, Gruffly had been overloading his poor palfrey. They couldn’t afford to be held up so he dumped a substantial pile of equipment onto a water proof tarpaulin, wrapping it up and weighing it down with a few rocks. Perhaps they could come back for it later.

Hank clambered up onto his palfrey. With a jolt, the animal started forward, causing Hank to almost pass out from the pain. The animal was clearly still petrified, skittering about, anxious to leave the clearing.

Hank turned Glue south west, aiming for where they crossed the Tigress previously or, in a worst case scenario, towards some safety at Big Tree. But Fritz pointed in a south westerly direction and in a typically brief manner spat out a single word, “spinner.”

“Spider,” Sabine translated. “Move it.” She was now completely on board with Hank’s plan. Flee.

It was all the persuasion Hank, or any of the others needed. They headed off following the river line almost due east, coincidently back in the direction, the now dead spider, had come from. Hank should have twigged then and there it was doubtless the wrong direction to travel. Pain, however, was clouding his judgement, he didn’t think their direction through at all, allowing Sabine to set the direction.

Somehow Hank ended up at the back of the column, so he alone was close enough to hear a thump behind him. He turned, looking back at their campsite and almost swore. Another arachnid scuttled across the clearing, appearing to have just jumped in. It was bigger, considerably bigger, than the one they had just killed. Hank guessed about half as big again as the first.

Hank lost sight of it as the forest became too dense to see into the clearing. He shivered as something uncomfortable ran up his spine. Those things were way too scary and that whole jumping thing was definitely not in Nancy’s piece-of-rubbish book. Though it mentioned that the males where the smaller gender of the species.

Size being relative, Hank never thought he would find himself saying it, but he was immensely glad he had fought a spider ‘mealy’ the size of a small horse. Thinking about the spider in the clearing that he guessed was female, he was very glad he hadn’t had to fight one the size of a very large horse.

What level was that monster, anyway? Hank decided he better read the rest of the previous notification. He needed something to keep his mind clear. Hank could not afford to focus on the pain it would just make things worse.

He almost swore. Only 27 XP for killing that monster. Then he saw the details. What on earth were they doing trying to kill a level 26 ‘juvenile’ male arachnid? If that was a baby how on earth were they supposed to kill a momma?

As it turned out, that was a question they would need to answer rather soon. Hank heard another thud, and a high pitched wailing screech. Oh goody, he thought darkly, momma has friends who want to find out who killed the baby of the family. Everyone glanced back towards the clearing.