In which everyone develops perfectly reasonable Arachnophobia

I have to be honest, and say that I thought that tackling this spider nest would be a fairly straightforward task, but it actually turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. If I never see a spider again, it will be too soon. Altria had seemed unhappy about whatever was down there, but not terrified, and in hindsight, I can only conclude that was because she didn’t actually realise what was there.
 
I’m going to lay out in some detail what we found, partly because setting it down will help me to get straight in my own mind what happened. I realise however, that this may well be of little interest to anyone who wasn't actually there, so please feel free to skip over this part of the narrative if you wish!
 
We woke early, had a light breakfast, and prepared ourselves, each in their own way. Atria lifted the trapdoor, and we filed down into the caves below the house, taking the narrow ladder one by one. A single candle was burning to light the way down, but on reaching the bottom it was very dark indeed. Most of us (save Arin) can just about see in this light, to one degree or another, but even so the only person who really seemed comfortable below ground was Enessa. She stepped confidently into the deeper shadows almost immediately, taking a deep breath of the stale musty air as if it refreshed her. Everyone else seemed tense and nervous, hands tight on weapons and eyes straining into the darkness.
 
Once everyone was down, Enessa and Raphael moved quietly ahead. Arin and I were relegated to the rear of the party, in case the sound of our armour alerted the spiders to our presence. Zeni hung back with us as well, showing a sensible caution that I wish she had maintained. We all picked our way slowly and carefully along the dusty ground, keeping our eyes peeled for the ephedra moss which Altria had said lived on the walls and ceiling of the caves.
 
After a few minutes of investigation, Orlando spotted a small passageway off to the south. It’s entrance was partially collapsed but he thought that maybe he would be able to wriggle through. It looked potentially interesting, but for now we decided to take the larger route eastwards. The floor of that passage was littered with bones, probably animal rather than humanoid, but it was hard to tell in that light and they could have belonged to almost anything, which was not a cheerful thought. I could hear the smaller bones crunching beneath feet as we moved nervously forward. Arin and I were still bringing up the rear when we heard a sudden loud yell of pain and surprise from Raphael, followed by an ominous quiet, broken only by the strange scuffling sound of many legs against stone.
 
For a moment everyone seemed frozen with shock, and then I heard Orlando shout that there was at least one large spider up ahead, maybe more. I heard the characteristic twang of his crossbow a second later, and his frustrated exclamation as the shot evidently went wide of the mark. Enessa, on the other hand (so Orlando told me later) stayed perfectly calm and collected, backing silently into the shadows at the end of the cave and taking careful aim at a second spider high up on the wall. She has some sort of hunter’s trick which she can use to mark a foe and make it easier to target, I’m not sure that it's magic exactly, although I don’t know what else to call it. Anyway, when things are a bit calmer I am going to see if she will teach it to me, it looks incredibly useful.
 
Before anyone else could react, a number of smaller spiders (still at least the size of a dog mind you, not exactly small) came flying towards us and tried to latch onto people, climbing up their bodies until they could bite at exposed arms and necks. It was a blessing that Zeni managed to take care of most of these with another sleep spell, which seem to be something of a specialism of hers. This spell obviously had a bit more power than she had expected, and Sabali also dropped, fast asleep and surrounded by inert spiders. If it hadn’t been for his loud snoring, I would have been seriously worried about him.
 
After Zeni’s magic, the only small spider still conscious attached itself to Wind, and she ran back towards Arin and I, frantically shaking out her skirts to try to dislodge it. The three of us struggled with it, Wind’s urgent movements being as much of a hindrance as a help, and eventually we managed to get it off her. Once it was on the ground, Wind stepped on it hard with her elegant bootheel, to her clear satisfaction.
 
Having freed Wind, we moved forward to face whatever might be ahead in the darkness. Arin cast some sort of energy bolt at one of the big spiders, channeling power through the symbol of Ioun he wears around his neck. It was a potent spell, three thick strands of power flowing around one another in a complex helical pattern and it struck the spider hard in the flank. Where it hit home, a ring of blueish light stood out against the darkness, making it an easy mark for future shots. As I had expected, Orlando took full advantage, downing the beast with a well placed arrow.
 
The other spider though, was still very much an active threat, and Sabali, having been woken by a slightly sheepish Zeni, moved to close with it. As he lashed out, I saw Zeni watching him intently with a very odd expression on her face. At the very last moment, she called out urgently ‘no, not there, just to the left’ and Sabali adjusted his strike to follow her directions. Undoubtedly he did more damage as a result, but it was strange - I’m surprised that Zeni could even see that much detail of what was happening from where she stood, and she is herself no swordfighter, as far as I know.
 
With only one spider left, it became the target for several attacks, culminating in another energy bolt from Arin, this time focused from his shield. It was more powerful than the last one, pulsing with a blue-white energy which crackled as it passed between Sabali and I, hitting the spider so hard that it punched a hole cleanly through its abdomen, and it collapsed in an oozing heap of blueish gore.
 
With the last spider down, at least as far as I could see, I ran to check on Raphael, whose unmoving body still lay where it had fallen in the first moments of the combat. He had two very sizable puncture wounds in his chest, each filled with a stinking and obviously poisonous ichor which was eating away at his flesh and gradually spreading beneath his skin in ugly black tendrils. His face was deathly pale, and his breathing shallow and uneven. Sabali also knelt beside him, retrieving a leather-wrapped packet from his pack which I took to be some sort of healer's kit, although not one that I recognised. He bent and looked closely at Raphael, lifting his eyelids and feeling for his pulse. After a few moments, he looked up at me seriously and said that he believed that the man had been poisoned. I glanced down at the blood oozing from the wounds, made thick and black as tar by whatever toxin the spider had injected, and agreed with him that it seemed likely.
 
Once Sabali seemed satisfied that there was nothing further he could discover, I placed my hands on Raphael’s chest and, closing my eyes, I prepared my mind for prayer. As the venom touched my skin I allowed myself to feel the wrongness of it, and a twisting stab of nausea turned my stomach. I called on Bahamut’s grace to transmute the poisoned blood back into something wholesome and life-giving, and almost at once it felt as though my hands had been washed clean in spring water. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know that Raphael’s wounds would once again be flowing red and bright. I gave thanks to my Lord for this mercy, and pressed my fingers a little harder against Raphael’s chest, asking as I did so for a further benediction to close the wounds and knit the still torn flesh together. I poured all of my energy into this task, and slowly felt the ragged edges of the bite wounds mending, although my strength had limits, and I knew that Raphael would still be weakened when he came to. As I stood, the ever-present sense of Bahamut’s awareness at the back of my mind suddenly blossomed into the warmth of approval, maybe even pride. It was a fleeting feeling, but I am sure that it was real. I have always doubted my worthiness for this path, so it was a great relief to know that, in this instance at least, my actions met with his blessing.
 
I stepped back to find Sabali immediately behind me, watching over my shoulder as Raphael’s eyes fluttered open and he came groggily back to consciousness. Although much improved, he was clearly still weak, and I saw him make his own prayers to the Moonweaver for, I would guess, strength and fortitude for the battles to come. She seemed to answer his entreaty, for something like a sparkling frost seemed to settle on his shoulders and he stood up noticeably straighter than before. Seeing the frost, Sabali rather thoughtfully offered Raphael his coat, against the chill, but Raphael was already walking away, giving orders to Enessa and Arin for the next stage of the exploration.
 
We moved cautiously forward into the next part of the cave, all pretty sure that there would be more spiders up ahead. We made a rather gruesome discovery of some humanoid figures entirely wrapped up in spider silk and clearly dead (although very well preserved). While we were inspecting these grisly remains, Zeni called out that she could hear something that sounded like scuttling nearby. She said that there was something strange about the sound, it came and went very abruptly, but I think that we all assumed that this was due to the strange echoing effects of the cave itself. We waited, but nothing actually showed itself, and so we continued to carefully explore until we came across an area with a profusion of moss growing on the ceiling. Arin confirmed that this was the ephedra that we needed to collect. Unfortunately, we could also see a number of spiders eggs in the same place.
 
Everyone was very much on edge by this point, and alert for the first sign of an another ambush. Raphael in particular kept glazing nervously up at the ceiling (after what happened last time, I really could not blame him). This surprise attack though, when it came, was rather more spectacular.
 
A truly enormous spider, bigger even than the one that had jumped Raphael, with yellow and black bands across its body and huge, hideous eyes simply appeared in front of Orlando. It didn’t jump from the ceiling this time, or spring from the shadows, it just blinked into existence, presumably from some other plane. I’ve heard of creatures that can do that, of course, but I’ve never actually seen it happen before and I almost jumped out of my skin. This strange new spider’s fangs were long and dripping with poison, this time not the thick black stuff, but a thin greenish liquid which hissed as it splashed onto the stone floor. It rose up, waving its front legs, and then struck viciously at Orlando, biting down hard on his shoulder. He cried out, and for a terrible moment it looked like he too would go down instantly, but he rallied magnificently. Staggering away from the spider, I saw him visibly gather his strength, clearly fueled by anger, and he even managed to turn and get a decent shot in.
 
Seeing what had happened, I jumped in front of the spider to try to draw its attention and stop it from pursuing the injured Orlando. Zeni was close too, but I couldn’t see the others at this point. Coming from behind me, I could hear horrified exclamations in several different voices, and the sound of hands slapping against cloth and armour. At that moment I couldn’t really turn around to see what was wrong, but when Raphael moved to the other side of the monster spider, striking with sword and dagger, I could see dozens of tiny spiders swarming all over his clothes and hair. I suspected that these little spiders were biting at him anywhere they could get a hold, and it seemed unlikely that he would be able to withstand their onslaught for long, given his injuries, but for now he was fighting very bravely.
 
When an opportunity presented itself to look around at my companions, I could see that Arin, Orlando and Sabali were all similarly plagued by the swarms of tiny spiders. Arin had his hand on Orlando’s shoulder and his head bowed, clearly offering up some badly needed healing prayers on Orlando’s behalf, while Zeni and Enessa took shots at the large spider. Sabali ran forward, tiny spiders scattering off him left and right, and took a few swings at the spider, and then I was surprised to see him dive headlong into a small pool of water on the cavern floor. Somehow sensing what was about to happen, the little spiders covering him leapt off before he entered the water, congregating at the edge of the pool. He stood there in the water for a moment, streaming wet and shaking his great furry head, grinning from ear to ear, before dashing out again.
 
The big yellow and black spider, clearly riled by the damage it had taken, went in to bite Raphael, but he somehow dodged out of the way at the very last moment in response, once again, to a shouted instruction from Zeni. The spider, frustrated, clacked its jaws and again waved its front legs at us, and then promptly vanished. It just disappeared into thin air. I swiped my sword through the air where it had been to check that it was not just invisible, but no, it was really gone. Despite dodging the bite from the big one, I watched in horror as the tiny spiders overwhelmed the weakened Raphael, and he fell first to his knees and then onto his front to lay unconscious on the floor of the cave. Once he was down, spiders seemed to flow away from him almost in a stream and began to move onto Sabali’s boots and up his legs. It was awful to watch them moving, and an involuntary shiver went up my spine.
 
The tiny spiders were, overall, a bit of an ordeal. They had nasty stinging bites and they seemed to get absolutely everywhere - on your face, in your hair and under your clothes. We did our best to get them off one another - magic seemed the most effective weapon against them, but I hesitated to use divine power against this sort of enemy (they were unpleasant certainly, but not exactly evil). Neither Arin, nor Raphael once he was back on his feet (someone must have healed him, probably Arin, but I didn’t see it happen), seemed to have any such qualms however, which was probably fortunate in the circumstances.
 
On the other side of the cavern, and so far unaffected by the plague of swarming spiders which were now infesting pretty much everyone else, I could see Zeni readying a spell and scanning around for the reappearance of the vanished monster spider. Power snapped between her hands and the glow of it lit her face from below and created strange dancing shadows behind her. She looked frightened, but determined to stand her ground. By this point the rest of us had moved, or perhaps had been driven, over to the other side of the cave by the pool, and so she was alone. I really blame myself for that - after all the drills and exercises I have done, I can’t believe that I didn't see that for the danger that it was. Although everything was happening so fast and things were so confused, that I’m not actually sure that I would have been able to get to her anyway.
 
After a few seconds the spider rematerialised, and it was directly in front of Zeni. It was obviously hurt, and leaking ichor from multiple wounds, but very much still fighting. She struck immediately, using the spell she had been holding ready, and loosed a bolt of fire that blasted hard into its body, releasing a foul stink of burning hair and keratin. It staggered sideways for a step, several legs giving way, but, driven by the pain of its injuries, it also made a desperate lunge to sink its fangs into Zeni’s unprotected body, injecting a massive dose of poison. She dropped without even making a sound, crumpling onto the floor, her spellbook tumbling from her hands.
 
Arin, seeing her fall, gave a shout and ran towards the spider before it could disappear again, swinging wildly with his mace. I was surprised to see the raw emotion on his normally calm features, but I’m quite sure that the look my own face was no better. The monster managed to dodge his frenzied blows, but that left it open for Enessa’s arrow, which took it in the leg. That seemed to be the final straw - it blinked out again momentarily, but then it was back and seemed to almost collapse in on itself, its carapace cracked open in several places with thick pale blood oozing out. It fell heavily and lay on the floor beside the still form of Zeni.
 
Unfortunately we still had the little spiders to deal with, which still seemed to be everywhere. Poor Sabali was beginning to panic a bit now, and I could hear him calling out for Zeni to help him. He obviously hadn’t seen her fall and I was glad that he had been spared that at least. By the time we were confident that we had got the last of the little bastards off, everyone had dozens of bites, with Enessa, Sabali and Orlando barely able to stand. In addition to the bites, most of us were soaking wet from trying to get the spiders off in the pool. I was very thankful for my thick chain mail armour - it might not be stealthy, and now it was unpleasantly wet, but it had kept most of the spiders off me and I was in better shape than most at the end of the fight.
 
I hurried over to where I had seen Zeni go down, to find Arin and Sabali already there. The damage to Zeni’s body was terrible. Like Raphael had earlier, she had two deep stab wounds where the fangs had struck home, but the poison here had clearly done far more harm in the time that we had been fighting. Zeni’s skin had taken on a greenish hue which was definitely strongest at the wound sites, but seemed to have spread across her whole body. Her skin was clammy to the touch and her extremities already felt cold. I felt a hard knot forming in my stomach as we looked desperately for any sign of life. I glanced over at Arin, who was clearly our most experienced healer, and he just shook his head sadly. Sabali had his strange medicine pouch out again and was selecting and discarding each little bundle of herbs in turn, apparently without finding anything of use. He turned to Arin and I expectantly, and we both tried to explain that, while we could sometimes fan the flames of life back to brightness where they had become dim, when the spirit had departed, there was nothing we could do. At that, he looked absolutely stricken and bent low over Zeni’s body calling her name - although really it was more of a howl than anything else, a truly heart-wrenching sound.
 
If I didn’t know better, I would say that that cry reached Zenirith in the very antechamber of the Raven Queen’s Hall. I’m no doctor, but I would have sworn to it that body and spirit had parted ways. I think that Arin would have done so too. But, as Sabali, wracked by grief, called her name, Arin spotted the tiniest movement of a pulse in her neck - it was very faint and irregular, but it was there. In lieu of a mirror, we held polished steel up to her lips, and although her chest still seemed unmoving, the shiny surface became very lightly clouded. We looked to Arin, but he was exhausted after the battle, and so, although I had never actually done it before, I tried to heal her using a deliberately cast spell, rather than simply by channeling power directly through my own body. To my enormous relief it worked. Her pulse steadied, the colour in her face was restored and her breathing became deep and even. As I continued the magic, the bleeding stopped and the bite marks also started to close up.
 
This new healing spell, although potent in its way, did not seem to be capable of clearing the poison out of her system entirely, and so she remained unconscious, although now sleeping peacefully. Sabali, who was himself in a very bad way but would not leave her side even to get bandaged up, estimated that it would be another hour or so before she woke. I don’t know how he arrived at that conclusion, but it turned out to be quite accurate. While we waited, we filled the hessian sacks which Altria had given us with the ephedra moss, and once Zeni was on her feet again we made our slow and painful way back the ladders, emerging blinking into the bright morning light which streamed through Altria’s windows.