The ogre spider lunges out at the party, using its web to quickly traverse the elevation needed to reach the heroes. Barnaby and Fobias are forced to hang around the outer edges of the room and wait for the spider to strike before they are close enough to hit it with a counter. Krask is able to stay further away and shoot crossbow bolts from afar and Theo rains hexes down on the spider. Unfortunately, the vermin’s mind is immune to Theo’s advances! The heroes are going to have to deal with this arachnid the old-fashioned way.
They spread out, drawing the spider’s attention to a different person with each turn. Instead of concentrating its efforts on a single hero, the spider is forced to spread the love. In an anti-climatic finish, the spider never even lands with its venom, and our heroes are able to lay its nasty corpse to rest in its own webbing.
With the immediate threat defeated, the party heads over to the four unconscious figures and debates how they want to handle the unlocking of their chains. Before any of the fetters are undone, however, it becomes clear that the ‘hairy man’ is beyond saving; his body is cold and lifeless. A quick search of the bodies turns up a note from ‘G’ that talks about bringing a lost sheep back home to the pack. Whether this is referring to someone that the PCs know or if it’s in regards to the firepelt cougar, the language isn’t concise enough to suggest one over the other.
Theo burns a couple charges on the wand of cure light wounds to breathe life back into the other people, one at a time. The first to wake is Jakardros, who regales the story of the Kreeg ogres running over Fort Rannick. Jak and the other two men, later revealed as Vale and Kaven, are all that remains of the Black Arrows now that the ogres have taken control of the fort. Vale confirms the story when he is brought to, but doesn’t offer much information that Jak hasn’t already said. The third, Kaven, is a curious case indeed. Marked with a Sihedron Rune tattoo, he is slightly rebuked by Jak for sneaking off to the Paradise, but that is the extent of the conversation as far as the tattoo is concerned.
After gearing up the Black Arrows with their lost gear, the party decides to take a well-deserved rest with the intent of clearing out the rest of the farmhouse in the morning. While they sleep, Krask has an unnerving dream in which a kobold thief is executed in front of his eyes for stealing from Longtooth. Reliving the memory reignites the fear in Krask; the dragon is always just over the horizon and even though Longtooth doesn’t know where Krask is, the dragon surely has some tricks up his figurative sleeve to locate the kobold.
What else remains to be found at the Graul Farmhouse? Will the party help retake Fort Rannick? Will Theo’s wanding ever get more effective?
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