If ya know ya know. Here's last time.
Our heroes head north, leaving the Enclave of Thorns, passing by the city of Fiadh, up into central Abhaile, moving away from the dense forests of the south. After some travel, they find themselves in the farmlands of the middle of the country, a few days out from the capital city of Cian.
Moving down a dirt road, they hear music up ahed - a roadside tavern! Zook points out that the concept of "roadside tavern" has kind of soured after the whole experience with the doppelgangers, but what are the odds of that happening again? The tavern is called the "Plucked Rose," and they can tell as they approach that it's much livelier than the Shiny Belles, which is good.
They enter the tavern and there's a rousing chorus of welcome from the patrons. Said patrons look to be mainly farmers, from their garb and general appearance, but there are also some ladies plying trade here, if you will. A large, bearded man waves them over and confirms that they are, in fact, adventurers, and then orders a round for them. They notice him pass the proprietor a coin, which is unusual - much of Abhaile runs on barter rather than currency (but then, they are getting close to Cian, where such things are more common).
The man introduces himself as Burl, and welcomes them warmly to the Rose. Sitting next to Burl is a smaller man, and said man is extremely drunk. The adventurers chat with Burl and get the lay of the land, and at some point the drunk man, Angus, pipes up and says that he saw something horrible - a spider the size of a horse with a man halfway down its gullet!
Burl gently reminds him that spiders don't have gullets. Aisling thinks about whether she's ever heard of such a thing, and while she's definitely heard of giant spiders, she's never heard of one capable of swallowing a man whole. But Angus is clearly freaked out about something, and the heroes decide maybe they'd better have a look. Not tonight, though; there doesn't seem to be an immediate threat to life and limb, and they don't want to go poking around in the dark.
Burl offers them a place to stay for the night (the Rose does not offer overnight accommodation), and has Dara help him get Angus onto the back of a donkey. The head west a ways to Burl's farm, and on the way he has the heroes tell him of their exploits - the doppelgangers, the owlbear, the strange gnolls ("what's a gnoll?"). He mentions that the worst they've had around here was an infestation of kobolds some years back, the adventurers mention they've dealt with those, too. Burl reaffirms his commitment to not being an adventurer as they arrive at his farm.
He opens the barn for them (a long-haired cow lows at them disinterestedly) and says they're welcome to stay, though he's going to be up early to deal with the cows. The heroes bed down (Zook casts an Alarm spell, of course).
In the morning, Burl wakes them getting the cows out, and the heroes pack up and start heading back along the road to the east. Burl doesn't have much to give them in the way of food, but does give them a bundle of carrots and suchlike. They stop at the Rose on the way and have some breakfast (salt pork, mashed potatoes with peppers, warm peach cider), and Aisling gives the proprietor, Niall, some coin (he mentions that he'd love to give them what he has, but he can't afford to, which of course they understand).
They ask Niall if he's aware of any disappearances, human or livestock, in the area, especially east of her. He's not, but notes that Lira, one of the girls, has family that way, so they ask her. Lira tells them that one of the hands on her farm, a young man named Domhnall, went south about a week ago to trade for tools and whatnot from one of the towns in the forests, but hasn't returned yet. She just assumed that weather or something was delaying him...
They get a description of Domhnall, and get back on the road. They head east into the hills, and Dara casts a spell to locate animals. She focuses on giant spiders, and her senses spread out from her body, zooming in on every little spider in the fields, over them, and then down between some hills. She finds a pit in the ground and her senses go down 30 feet, at which point the pit's walls are covered in webs. She sees spiders the size of dogs emerge from the webbing and skitter by, and she comes out of the spell, shuddering.
The heroes find the pit, and Aisling activates her driftglobe to get a bit of extra light. She looks down the pit but can only see darkness; Dara can see a little further and notes that the floor is covered in webs, too. There's brief discussion of just burning the webs, but on the off chance that Domhnall (or anyone else) is still alive, they decide they'd better just go down and investigate. Zook auguries that course of action, and, predictably, it's likely to bring good and bad results.
Clara anchors her pitons in the bedrock near the pit, ties off the ropes, and she and Aisling start to descend. They get about halfway down when Aisling slips and the two of them collide - they don't fall, but Aisling drops her driftglobe. It falls to the webbed ground below and sits there, glowing.
The two of them land, and find themselves fighting to avoid getting caught up in webs. Zook slides down the rope, and Dara casts a spiderclimb spell and just moves down the wall, but ironically when she hits the webs about 10 feet from the ground she gets tangled. Zook, not wanting that to happen to him, tosses a firebolt to burn off some of the webs, but misjudges the aim and winds up catching Aisling in the fire ("DAMMIT ZOOK").
Zook lands, and not a moment later the spiders emerge. Four of them, the size of large dogs, flattening themselves before the pounce. The heroes ready weapons.
Aisling throws a cloud of daggers in front of her, while Clara charges at a spider...but immediately gets caught in the webs. Zook hurls fire and burns off more webs, and Dara, still stuck on the wall, unleashes a thunderwave. She notes that while the wave rattles the spider a bit, it also weakens the webs...
One of the spiders, smarting from Zook's fiery attack, leaps at Aisling and winds up jumping straight into the cloud of daggers. Legs and goop go flying. Meanwhile Dara casts thunderwave again, freeing herself from the webs and knocking the spider to the floor. The spiders rally, though, closing in on the adventurers and biting. Clara, still stuck fast and unable to fight as effectively as usual, strikes with her quarterstaff and beats the spider, but winds up with some bites (fortunately she is more resistant to poison than the others). Aisling sustains multiple bites and winds up retreating to heal, but the webs impede her movement (though she does wind up on the other side of the dagger-cloud, at least). One of the spiders closes on Zook and bites him, and he falls to the ground, paralyzed by the venom. The spider leaps on him and starts wrapping him in silk.
Dara, meanwhile, has cast a flame blade and singed a spider. Aisling yells for Clara to help Zook, and she runs over (if slowly) and strikes the spider wrapping him. The heroes manage to kill the remaining arachnids without further casualties, and Dara casts a healing spell to revive Zook. He comes to, groggily, and the heroes regroup bit.
They hear muffled cries from a tunnel, and Clara and Dara investigate. They find a man wrapped in silk, wriggling, and Dara cuts him loose. He starts chanting in the language they don't know, and when they try to pull him out, he screams. They note multiple bite wounds on his arms.
Back in the central room, Aisling sees a pair of spider legs emerge from another passageway, but these are much bigger - that spider must be the size of a horse! It's much worse than that, though. As it emerges, she sees that it's a man's top half, with the body and legs of a spider. He still has multiple eyes, though, and his skin has a grey and sticky look to it.
He advances from the tunnel and hisses something in a strange language. The heroes back away, trying to get to the ropes. They're injured and depleted, and have no idea if they can best this strange monster.
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