Most Trusted Journal

We started off with a conversation with the Spider Mages, exchanging question for question. A quick summary:

• Our map was actually a copy, the original was left in the water tunnel.
• A group of 400-500 could leave the caer without Adept support
• We want to lead out anyone who wants to go.

They told us/we found out
• They are willing to allow people people to leave, but no group (t'skrangs, dwarves, etc).
• The problem with Camrish is imbalance.
• E'leia is now one of them.
• Many of them are the people locked in the fire tunnels during the plague.
• The spiders radiate magic, increasing the manna level around them.

I revealed (again) that the slugs have are "sleeping" dwarves inside. Given that, Terra and I agreed that the fire tunnel people and the water tunnel council are likely working together. We were not able to explain this to Thwack.

Thwack and Gilad wanted to build a watch tower. They started to ask me, but then came to their senses and asked Terra. She realized that she couldn't really make a platform for them to shoot at, and we got into a big argument. I gestured at Thwack and said "be quiet" (and cast silence) He drew his bow, mystic-aimed on me, and shot, as I dropped to the ground and created a one-minute stone mirage. Terra put up a force dome around him. Then, shouting through my dome, I explained:
"What in the name of the five elements?!?" -Terra
"I didn't actually cast a spell *on* him... I cast a spell, but..."- Jenna
"What did you do?" -Gilad
"I cast it at the ground near him..." -Jenna

We calmed down and decided to leave, but noticed that there was a force dome outside our building that had been stacked on Terra's. Steven managed to drill through it, and Gilad shot a zombie that was running away with a red cloth over it's shoulder. A spider approached us, grumbled about the fact that we'd shot the zombie, and said

"We haven't touched the mine-carts. You haven't touched the mine-carts. There are about to be some people from the water tunnels here. They aren't going to touch the mine-carts either. We're going to tell them not to, and we'll put some non-lethal blocks in front of them, but if they initiate violence, we will defend ourselves with lethal force. If you defend them, we will consider you part of them. And can we have the body back?"
Gilad responded "You can go get it"
He went to get it, and we all waited for something to happen. We saw the scout party walk past, looking, gawking, and looking, then came back and began to talk to the spider nearest us.

"You don't want to be on this street"
"We want to make sure that you don't touch the mine-carts"
"We aren't likely to be the ones breaking this deal"
"That's fine."
"Can you keep your pet safe?" (gesturing to Gilad)
"Gilad, just back off"
<glare>
Suddenly, there is a smoke grenade from above and near the scouting party/spider side of the street. A battle ensues. Most of the scout team gets totally clobbered by the spider they engage, Donk challenges one to a duel as it put up a magic force-disk (after Thwack and Gilad bounce off it's metal-shield). The third watches and shouts. The guy on the roof shoots the second spider with two crossbows, and went back to cranking. I put myself into a metal hampster-ball to keep the zombies away, and Steven cast an explosive lightning-ball on the zombies nearby, knocking them all down. This left my metal ball very hot, but was pretty useful anyway. Thwack, Gilad and Tristain jumped on spider #3 and hurt it badly before it jumped into astral space to keep them from killing it. Terra put another spider into a force dome, and the spider dueling with Donk impaled him with six of it's "legs" . Then Donk hit it with both his broadsword and his axe. One spider yelled "They're all dead! Why are you fighting?" I managed to ephemeral bolt it again after getting out of the hamster ball, just as the Spiders teleported out. The force-wall vanished and we woke up the unconscious people from the scout party.

"We were told that, should we find metal, take it to the forge." they said, so they helped us move the metal and went back. We were left here to guard the metal at the forge. Tristain removed the wheels and put the bolts in his pocket. The scout team (minus Meg) returned to the Caer with a message in Myrkridia. "We have the metal at the forge. We will guard it, but we need you soon. Our elementalist will need sleep soon. We may start the forge. Be careful--we think that the fire tunnel people and the council may be in collusion"