We decided to enter group stealth under Fester’s guidance. As we travel down the tunnel system Fester sees a spider, and alerts us, and we go back track to where we have more space. Anatole complains that he doesn’t want to tango with spiders as he wants to stay alive. I say we can’t be sure that the tunnels lead to the church or not.
It’s worth noting that we haven’t explored the tunnels, and Kon tells us that people have definitely passed through here. Anatole, changing his tune, decides to help Kon and I provide Guidance again as he tries to find where the tracks lead further down the direction we saw the spiders in.
Kon and Remy enter stealth and fade down the tunnel systems. They return and tell us they found several small spiders and some larger ones deeper in. I recall the meat locker, and suggest that maybe they use the kidnapped victims as food for the spiders to deter them, or the mystery meat at least. That earns me a hero point of inspiration.
Kon suggests getting some meat and testing out whether the spiders like it, and I say that’s a great idea.
He gets some and tests it on the smaller group of spiders. From down the tunnels, as my torch is still lit and I stay behind, we hear many chittering noises. Kon disappears further down the tunnels. There is a deep sense of dread as Anatole, Fester and I await Kon and Remy’s second return.
(From Kon’s tales, we know that he and Remy attempt to feed the spiders and keep them away from us, hopefully in attempts to get us deeper in.)
“They do feast on the meat, quite vigorously, they will move to get to it. But bad news, there are so many of them… and some larger masses I couldn’t see inside the caves.”
“That’s delightful…” Anatole says.
“But if you feed them, would you feel safe walking past them?” I ask him.
Kon thinks for a moment, from where he threw the meat, spiders ran from further away from the thrown meat than the meat was thrown… “They didn’t go for the meat in my bag, but ran in from further away to get it.”
“Domesticated?” Fester asks.
“Probably more like, in an acknowledgement of getting fed.”
“Like pets almost…”
“Or partially domesticated.”
Fester remembers that they have web-sense and lets us know. We travel down the tunnels towards one of the horrible messes of spidery goodness. Kon travels ahead of us and finds out there is a shelf in this room and several vials. Kon goes to retrieve them, finds some vials and an extraction device. He picks it up, and we determine that the spider venom is probably what the Inquisition uses to get their victims in and out.
The metal device has eight leg slots, a head visor and a hole with tubes that seem to line up with where venom glands would be on a baby spider. As I have left down the tunnel, I can hear a horrible metal clinking… I travel back to the entry of the cavern to watch Kon and Anatole manhandle spiders whilst Fester feeds the spiders.
It’s honestly horrifying, but Anatole seems to be overcome with inspiration. We travel down the tunnels and go down the opposite tunnel, and Kon finds a cat-o-nine-tails with a huge number of extra tails, and leads us back out.
I say we should finish our exploration and then get the fuck out of the tunnel system. Find the exit as soon as possible, if there is one.
We find one tunnel system that looks like it may have an exit. Fester yeets into that tunnel before anyone else, and everyone is just filing in after him. So, I stand at the entrance to that part.
Fester investigates it, but he finds that there is a seam in the rock walls, but he can only see the seam where my torchlight does not hit it. Kon is also holding a torch as well as me, so I douse mine and Kon retreats, now Fester can see a very obvious trap door, and he pulls the handle. The trap door falls open and the ladder falls on his head, bonking him. He calls out that he found a ladder.
I tell him to be careful on the way out, and Fester scurries up the ladder. The ladder leads into a small room, dimly lit, by windows angled from the top of the room to let light in, but not allow vision. If he were to scuttle up to the windows, he would see he is in the stables of the Golden Grain. Fester explores the room and finds the insignia of the Inquisition upon some fabrics, and some slippers with soft soles for sneaking, and three completed dream potions (the refined venom for sleeping). The door is also locked from the inside, a deadbolt to allow passage out, but not in.
Fester grabs the slippers and calls down that he found the exit, it leads to the stables, it has some potions and robes. With that established, I tell Kon I will go tell Balthazar the good news, and the bad news.
I detail the tunnel system, the dream spiders, the general goings on of the Inquisition members and the old Inn Keeper’s nefarious deeds. Balthazar thanks us for going down there instead of his team, as he fears they would have gone for destruction and gotten themselves killed, I say I’m glad that he didn’t do that, and that we’re glad to be of service, then Remy, his spearmen and I leave to rejoin the others. We find them easily enough.
“Did you take those extra robes?” Remy asks them.
We decide that yes actually, we did. So, we discuss the plan for tonight and the idea of communicators for the endeavor, lunch, then the plan to kill Lord High Chaplain Arctus. As we enter Remy’s armory to get the communicators, he leads us down a tunnel, the tunnel has slits and holes and we note – far too late – that if we were going to be killed, we would have been by the men stationed with spears on the other side.
“You know, I’m a good smith, but I’m still years away from craftsmanship like this… is any of this from the Abyss?” I ask him.
“Only this,” and he tips his hat.
He briefly tells us that the gear is from all over in the mundane world, all just very fine craftsmanship.
Remy then opens a drawer from under the large table with the map, full of wooden carvings. The drawer has pins in it, and numbers on the backs of each. Eight emerald pins, “These are from the Abyss, they are communicators…. From what we can tell, each different gemstone communicates only with itself; these emeralds are not in use by active duty, so will be fit for purpose.”
We discussed the plan in a bit more detail. Remy shows us the map table and the tokens, showing us 17 more tokens to represent the Inquisition members they expect to be there.
“It is possible that the guest speaker is not the chaplain… and we may be surprised by someone else… these other members are much less problematic if they appear tonight.” He gestures to the lesser tokens scattered about the map.
“But this one would be a pleasant surprise…” He picks up a token that represents a different leader of the Inquisition.
“If more than one leader shows up?” Fester asks.
“If we cannot capture them for information, we should kill them to reduce their strength.”
We briefly discuss the uses of the potions versus the uses of the venoms.
We discussed if we should go in early, or explore the other church, as there are in fact, two of them in West Plaza.
Alpinlight has 8,001 people living here, Rex is doing amazing at unemployment. We decide to split up and send Kon and Remy’s group to one church and us to the other.
