As we ended our last session, the party were meeting with Sergio, a local gang lord, and establishing a temporary “partnership.” The group had learned some different bits of information about the happenings going on in Bridgefront and the killings, including that Sergio was now looking for a “female, half-elf wearing black leathers” (aka Darcy)…not to kill her but to seek aid. The gang lord shared quite a bit of information about the killings in his territory…a lot more killings than the party had known about.
Sergio offered one of his men, Elvo, to lead the party deeper into the Shingles where Sergio’s men had gone missing. That’s where we’ll pick up after the break.
(For NPC names, at least for those of Chelish background, we have been using this name generator, Pathfinder/Golarion Name Generator (Cheliaxian).
All players were in attendance but Adam (Aimar) and Jen (Isabella) both had to drop off at different times so their PCs had other business to attend to.
I do not believe that there are spoilers for any published adventures below the break. My GM comments, as usual, are in italics.
Elvo began leading the party deeper into the Shingles, following one of the web lines that the spider-eel had left behind. (These lines were both ambush lines and early warning systems for the spider-eels. As we’ll see soon, the creatures had quite a few of these lines scattered about this area.) Everyone was quite careful to not touch the web.
After a short bit of travel, Elvo asked if they could all step into a side chamber for a short conversation. He shared:
- Sergio is planning on killing the group after they accomplish their task. He is supposed to lead the group back to a specific location where they will be ambushed. Additionally, Sergio has a couple of men following.
- Instead, Elvo is willing to lead the group out a different way on one condition…that they kill Sergio.
- When asked why, Elvo says that he’ll take over the gang. It should be relatively easy to take out Sergio as most of his remaining men will be waiting at the ambush site. Elvo is not pleased with how many men (and friends) have been killed recently.
- The group agrees to this plan.
With that settled, the party continues with Elvo in the lead.
- After traveling deeper into the maze of the Shingles, the group comes to a relatively more open area. There are three dead bodies, all with cookie-cutter wounds on their bodies…all Sergio’s men.
- A spider-eel is hiding up in one corner of this area. After a short fight, it is defeated.
- Aimar dissects the body of the spider-eel in the hopes of learning more about the creatures.
- It has no internal organs whatsoever. It has its mouth which simply ends in a small cavity, just large enough to hold 3-5 chunks of flesh that had been missing from each victim.
- There are no glands or organs for the poison the creature most likely injects with its fangs. Nothing for creating the webs. Nothing else internally at all.
- There are multiple strands of web that lead away from this area.
- The party adopts a strategy of following the webs without touching them with Darcy taking the lead (Elvo was a bit rattled by the spider-eel encounter). As a result, they discover a few different things.
- One set of webs leads into a “town square” area that is much larger and more open than the rest of the Shingles.
- Other web strands discovered in the exploration lead to other spider-eels. (I believe that they encountered and killed a total of three such spider-eels.) Each is quickly dispatched as they seem to not realize that the party is approaching since their web strands are being avoided.
- Some strands lead out from this area of the Shingles.
- Back to the “town square” area…
- The entire area is shrouded in silky webs (think funnel spider webs).
- There are multiple ways of accessing this area. Checking each shows that these webs cover the entire area…walls, floors, and ceiling.
- Leathery egg sacs are scattered about the area as well.
- There is clearly something in here, right? Probably the queen spider-eel. Mac summons “Shroomy” (via his summon ally power) and has it start to smash one of the egg sacs.
- A large and sticky net of webs shoots out from the darkness and drags Shroomy away.
- Darcy circles around to a different entrance to the area while Mac, Stan, and Pop remain at another. Elvo seeks shelter in a nearby chamber. (Adam and Jen had to bow out by this point so both of their characters had left.)
- With some additional “encouragement,” a quite large version of a spider-eel is eventually lured to a spot where pretty much all of the party can see it. (Fortunately, the webs sheeting the area were not sticky…only difficult to move through.) The “queen” is easily 3-4 times the size of the ones previously encountered.
- Although it was a bit dicey, the party prevailed and the queen was defeated.
And that is were we ended the session. It may seem like a relatively short session given the shorter than normal recap, but it wasn’t.
Ended the session with only two bennies left among everyone (Mac and Pop each had one left) and with about ten minutes left before our normal cut-off time.
I created a map for this session to use in Foundry. It was quite cramped and winding and confusing and had dozens of doors leading into small shacks, huts, and other chambers. I think this helped to further enforce just how cramped and winding and confusing it can be to travel in the Shingles. Without a guide, it would be quite easy to get lost. Plus, it was at night so it was dark…really dark given all of the “construction” above the level that the party was traveling through. I did not even include…for the sake of my sanity and to prevent carpal tunnel in my wrists…the up and down nature of the Shingles. Passages lead up and down regularly making the place even more confusing.
It would appear that the party has slain the “source” of the spider-eels and, hopefully, put an end to those killings. They do still need to deal with the egg sacs throughout the chamber as well as deal with Sergio (and elevate Elvo to gang boss). One can only hope that there is not another spider-eel “queen” anywhere. If they’re like any other sort of “hive” or colony/social creature, there probably isn’t. Then again, they don’t really appear to have any of the internal structure that one would expect in a creature.
If the queen was the thing that emerged from the first shiver victim who had been found with their torso burst open and eye sockets empty, that still leaves at least two more such victims and the creatures that emerged from them. Are there more? If the pattern identified of one shiver killing each Oathday, then there should be another victim this very night. What about the creatures of the other victims? How does the Sanctuary tie into all of this? Will Davios, the other gang leader with whom a meeting is being arranged, be able to provide additional information? Will Mudpuppy be able to gather any more information with the coins that Pop so generously shared with him?
And, of course, there is the most important question regarding these killings…what is causing all of this in the first place?!?
