Aspiring Heroes of Faerûn

Krackle perception 16

Chrys keeps her hands on her weapons, eying the surrounding forest warily.

Perception: 5

Perception: 14

Kess Perception: 15

Vesper Perception: 12

Continuing forward, you press on, navigating through the tight trees and clumps of old spider webs that still cling to some of the branches, while keeping your senses alert for any more signs of trouble in this moody, spooky place. For being the middle of the day, this place is surprisingly dark, and eerily silent, absent of any birds, critters or other usual forest dwellers. 

You go 50 feet, then another 50, passing through a landscape that appears to be strangled by a scattered mess of webs and seemingly choked of any kind normal life. Finally, you reach the edge of a small clearing, but "clearing" would seem to be a misnomer, because this place is anything but clear. 

In the middle of this clearing, you see what appears to be a lone maple tree that's almost completely smothered in a thick shroud of spider webs, its higher branches struggling to poke out from out of the web, with many of the smaller sticks broken, and leaves torn. Stuck to the outside, you see numerous small clumps, which you guess to be small creatures and insects that have been caught in the web. They look like sickly warts on a layer of diseased skin.

Lumen looks high up into the branches, trying to find another of those spider people hiding up there. Then he places four of his candles in a circle around the tree-web-thing, at a distance of about ten feet, careful to keep them away from the party. "Think this place could use some brightening up, don't you?" Then unless someone objects, he uses prestidigitation to light them up to get a better look, and also hopefully to distract/blind whatever's in here.

"This place seems even spookier then the last" Krackle would say as he shuffles his feet while slowly moving forward.

"If that's the tree we be lookin' for, we gotta help her," Chrys says.  Casting about, the only thing she can find that might cut through the webs in her equipment is a dagger.  She eyes it, before tucking it back in her belt and taking a closer look at the tree.  "Healin' trees ain't my specialty," she grumbles under her breath, trying to figure out the best way to free the tree of its malaise.

Investigation: 8

You enter the clearing and approach the tree, and as you get closer, you can see that it's definitely a maple tree, and you get a much better, and more intimate look at just how smothered and encased it is with all the spider webs wrapped around it. Lumen sets about setting up his four candles and uses his catnip to light them, which brings dull, but increased illumination to the area. They don't shed very much light, but it's enough to increase visual contrast and dispel at least some of the spooky, dim mood.

That's when he sees the movement.. it's almost as if the ground is shifting near where he is standing, but at closer look reveals that it's not the ground that's moving, it's a densely packed horde of crawling insects... centipedes, that are swiftly creeping towards him...

As Chrys approaches the tree to get a closer look, she notices a similarly sized swarm of spiders crawling down the web towards her with surprising speed.

"Swarm o' spiders!" Chrys yells out, backing away and pulling out her hammer.  "Look out, they're comin' for us!"  She stops her retreat several feet well short of the others, standing as an enticing target before the swarm and the rest of the party.

Ready action: dodge if attacked. 

Krackle, remembering the pain from his last run in with a spider would scramble backwards as a flame forms in his hand. He would quickly toss the ball of flame towards the advancing spiders as he ducks behind Chrys.

Attack: 13 Damage: 5

Vesper will back up to get away from the swarms.

Let’s go ahead and roll initiative. 

Vesper:6

9

Initiative for M. Lumen:  16

Chrinitiative: 13

Kess Initiative: 24

DM Rolls: 7, 5, 6

As you being to show your concern for the advancing swarms of spiders and centipedes and begin a plan of attack, a thick strand of webs suddenly shoots out from one of the trees at the edge of the clearing. Looking up, you see another one of those humanoid spider things positioned on one of the large overhanging branches, about twenty feet up. As with the last time, this one also went unnoticed by you as as you approached the maple tree. 

The strand is aimed at Chrys, 17, and it catches her totally by surprise. A thick sticky glop of webbing splats onto her body, sticking her arms to her sides, holding her tightly and causing her to be [Tooltip Not Found] (On her next action, she can try to break free (Athletics check of DC 11, or someone else can try and cut or burn her free.)

With that, the two swarms seem even more energized and begin crawling towards Lumen and Chrys.

Initiative order

1. Kess
2. Lumen
3. Chrys
4. Krackle
5. Humanoid Spider Thing
6. Vesper
7. Spider Swarm
8. Centipede Swarm

Kess, Lumen, Chrys and Krackle can go ahead take their turns, and someone can post for Kess now too, until she returns.

Kess pulls out her bow and shoots the Humanoid Spider Thing

Attack: 15 Damage: 10

OOC: did you want to use my previous attack?