Five Leagues From The Shadowdeep – The Missing – The Infected Trees
Serrol, Hildr and the rescued villager Adalbert journeyed into the Spidercrawl woods, aptly named as they soon saw webs hanging from trees, and cocoons of roughly human size and shape.
In the distance, they saw trees heavily covered with webs, and egg sacks. Those trees needed to be burned, to eliminate the next generation of these zombie-creating spiders.
In the distance, they saw trees heavily covered with webs, and egg sacks. Those trees needed to be burned, to eliminate the next generation of these zombie-creating spiders.
The spiders, detecting the warband, came charging. Serrol's arrow went wide of the skittering spider, but Hildr was able to wound one.
Serrol and Hildr moved into melee combat, killing two spiders while Adalbert charged ahead, ready to burn the trees while the others kept the spider's attention.
As Serrol was advancing after his kill, he became trapped in the everpresent webs, and struggled to move.
Hildr killed the spider that charged her, while Serrol shouts "Go! Help Adalbert!" as a spider leaped on him. He was able to shift around, avoiding a serious injury.
As Adalbert and Hildr dash forward, Serrol finally frees himself.
A break in the everpresent clouds allows a ray of light to shine on Serrol, and the light drives the spider retreats from him. Serrol then ran forward, ignoring the spider, to support the others.
Adalbert and Hildr put torches to trees, which ignite quickly due to the webbing. But as they are doing this, they notice a fifth nest tree.
As Hildr is moving to the next tree, she is caught in webs, but she quickly breaks free to continue her mission.
A spider leaps onto Serrol, who is overcome and falls.
Hildr is wounded by a spider while she moves to the next tree, but she and Adalbert put two more trees to the torch.
Unfortunately, Hildr and Adalbert were swarmed by the spiders, who overcame them.
Another break in the clouds drove the spiders into the shadow of the trees, allowing Hildr and Adalbert to crawl to safety; however, Serrol had perished. They took the Sword of Aventine and returned to campBefore nightfall, they had regained enough strength to return to camp, and then to Earav.
Back at town, they briefed the Ranger captain on what they had found, and returned Aventine's sword.
When Carov heard that Serrol had died, he laughed as tears ran down his face. "He kept dreaming that I would die - in the frozen city, here...... and yet, he is the one to leave first."
The Ranger Captain came to them as they were mourning Serrol. "I know you are mourning, but we have lost contact with the beacon tower of Tor Varden. If the tower has fallen, that means the enemy has breached our defenses. I know it is asking much of you, but we need someone to go and ascertain the truth."
Sakalas stood, his face mostly concealed by the hood of his cloak, grabbed his gear, and started to depart. Carov, Hildr and Skitter quickly grabbed their gear, and went to follow.
Yes, we have reached an inflection point. With my "avatar" dead, I need to recreate the team, and I need to think about that. I fully intend to continue playing, as I want to get through all the missions.
