It was a tense, silent trek through the Fellwood. The trees grew close together blocking out of the majority of light. If not for the eyeshadow powder that Arushi prepared, they would have been forced to resort to torches. That would have announced their presence to whatever called these woods home. Bronze slowly circled through the upper branches of the trees, occasionally alighting on one to wait on them to advance. To relieve the boredom Damian asked Bronze to note any interesting plants or beasts in the vicinity. While no animals were found, there was a vast amount of interesting vegetation. Damian informed Arushi, who requested samples.

  Thus, in addition to her scouting, Bronze would occasionally return to drop off plants that would be added to Arushi’s inventory for later study. While most looked like strange versions of ordinary appearance, there were a few with exotic looks. There was a strain of acorns looking nuts that looked and felt like they were made of solid diamond. A flower that looked like a living tongue of flame, and berries that cycled through a rainbow of colors, while fading in and out of existence.

  A skittering noise, off to their left, caught their attention. There was a flicker of motion and quick scurrying, before a large hairy spider leg came into view. It was a tarantula the size of a semi-trailer. Bronze gave a warning caw from off to the right, as a bunch of what looked like dog to horse sized wolf spiders crawled out from the underbrush or down trees. The trio put their backs together, Viktor facing the largest spider, Arushi and Damian facing the rest.

  “I hate spiders. They are creepy!” Viktor said.

  Arushi asked, “How long can you hold off the big one?”

  “Long enough.”

  Damian took a quick count of the spiders surrounding them, “I count twenty of the small ones. I’ll thin their numbers as quick as I can, keep them off me as long as possible.”

  “Understood.” Arushi replied.

  Damian reached back and tapped Viktor’s armor as a signal to start. The giant bear of a man didn’t disappoint. He let out a ferocious yell, intimidating enough to cause the spiders to pause in their movements, and launched himself at the tarantula. Damian took aim at the far-right side, depressed the trigger and gave a quick sweep through the ranks of hesitating arachnids. There was a chorus of shrieks and squealing hisses as spiders were hit with rapid fire necrotic bolts. A third collapsed as their legs were cut by passing bolts and rotted off, others were unlucky enough to have a few bolts pierce close enough to the brain to kill them out right.

  The remaining thirteen lunged forward in a blind rage of pain and panic. Arushi charged forward to meet the enraged arachnids; her spear danced between legs and fangs as she slashed and stabbed with a false slowness and precision. By the time Damian slapped in a new drum mag, the woman had killed two more spiders and removed half the eyes of three more. Damian took off to the side to create some space and gain a better angle to fire from. When a dog sized spider leapt at him with extended fangs, Bronze swooped in and plucked it out of the air. Her dagger like talons dug their way into the creature’s abdomen as she soared to the canopy. She did a quick loop into a dive and released the captured arachnid. It flew at speed into another spider that was trying to sneak over to Viktor.

  Bronze reangled her dive and spread he wings wide at the last moment. Her feathers, sharp as blades carved through a weakened fore leg Viktor had been hacking at with his axes. Focusing back on his own fight, Damian slid into the flank of the line of spiders. He took quick aim at a group of them preparing to charge in to the fray. His bolts cleaved through them, with penetrating force, dropping the group of four as he swiveled and fired again. Arushi was like a dancer, spinning and stabbing, slashing and jabbing to a rhythm only she could hear. She felled spider after spider, until none remained standing in her vicinity.

  The two turned and rushed to assist Viktor. The large Russian had cleaved through a fang, and turned the tarantulas face into a crisscross of scars. Bronze would dive at the creature’s abdomen from above, scoring wounds that gushed with neon green blood. Arushi lunged forward and removed three of the spiders eight eyes in a flurry of stabs. Damian released a barrage that targeted where the legs met the abdomen, causing all that remained on the beast’s left side to rot off. Viktor seized on the opportunity and leaped, bringing his twin axes down in a vicious chop the bisected the spider’s head.

  “Zat vas horrible. Creepy crawlies are ze vorst!” Viktor groaned.

  “Sorry to tell ya’, that those are likely just the first of many waves.” Damian said

  “Vhat! Vhy?”

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  “Arachnids are solitary hunters, especially where different species are involved. Something is likely controlling them and sent this wave at us.” Arushi explained.

  “Lovely. So, vhat now?” Viktor asked.

  Damian started to pluck his bolts from the corpse of the tarantula. “First, I need to collect as many bolts as I can reuse. I have a limited number of magazines. Can you help me out? It will go much quicker.”

  “Da, is no problem. Vhat about after that?” Viktor helped him pick up what bolts the big man could find.

  Arushi was the one to answer him, “We pick up the pace and get out of whatever creature’s territory we are in. A dragon already dangerous enough, I don’t want to deal with stronger monsters if we don’t absolutely have too.”

  Collecting the bolts was rather easy, due to the fact that Damian’s earlier hypothesis was correct. Anything that was ‘dead’ that landed on the forest floor would rapidly decay. Half of the smaller spider corpses were gone when they went to collect the rest of the bolts. In the end they only recovered enough to refill Damian’s current magazine with a remainder of fifteen crossbow bolts for the empty mag.

  They returned to the trail at a jog. None of them wished to deal with the spiders again if they could help it.

  It took them three days to reach Shale’s rock. They had to fend off four more waves of spiders, with increasing numbers each time. While the trio was scrapped and bruised, it wasn’t anything Arushi’s salves couldn’t heal. One thing that was worrying was that Arushi’s stock of eyeshadow was diminishing faster than expected. With the constant hunt and harassment by spiders the trio were never able to fully apply the powder, leading to wasted product. With her current reserves she estimated that they would run out in two days, which if they kept their previous pace would leave them at Drowner’s pond.

  Shale’s rock was in a large, open clearing that seemed to mark the boundaries of spider territory. The group took advantage of the reprieve and set up camp to rest up. Damian gathered wood for the fire, as Arushi set up the tents, Viktor naturally in charge of cooking. When the chores were done, the party collapsed around the fire pit, tired, sore, and very hungry. To Viktor’s horror Damian pulled out a few spider legs and asked him to cook them, with Arushi expressing interest in trying them.

  “Vhy vould you eat something so disgusting? Viktor asked.

  “What? I read somewhere that they are considered a delicacy in Cambodia. When properly fried the legs and heads supposedly taste like fried chicken skin.” Damian answered.

  “I do not have the means to fry them!” Viktor objected, seizing on an opportunity to not have to deal with them.

  “Maybe they will be similar to roasted crab legs?” Arushi suggested.

  “Fine, but I will be having beef, like normal person.” Viktor grumped.

  As the spider legs were slow roasted over the fire the discussion turned to the dragon lurking in their future.

  “What kind of dragon do you suppose it will be?” Arushi broached the topic.

  Damian shrugged, “Likely a western dragon.”

  “Vhy, do you say that?”

  “Well, this is scenario is supposed to show our views on dragons. Eastern dragons tend to be depicted as ocean dwelling a majority of the time and are more, humanized then western dragons. You can negotiate with an eastern dragon, not as much with traditional western dragons. The town we spawned in was also a based on a western medieval style. Lastly, spiders as monsters tend to feature more heavily in western fantasy settings.” Damian reasoned out.

  “Fair enough. So, what are we going to be dealing with? I will admit to not being heavily into the fantasy genre. Arushi asked.

  “Vell, if Damian is correct then it depends. Is it the modern interpretations, vhere they are fonts of might both magical and physical might? Or is it more like the dragons of Arthurian legend, vhere they are giant lizards vith elemental breath, and are allegories for the seven deadly sins?” Viktor picked up the thread of conversation as he turned the spider legs with a shudder.

  “That is the important question. Neither really changes our approach, but one is more difficult to deal with than the other.” Damian agreed with Viktor’s assessment.

  Conversation drifted into lighter topics from there. Continuing to get to know each other better like on their first night in the scenario. Dinner passed by with a decent amount of amusement. Damian and Arushi found the spider leg meat to be rather tasty, while Bronze sided with Viktor in opposition. Viktor and his bird fellow in the anti-spider meat camp shared a steak Viktor cooked. Damian and Arushi spent a good few minutes coming up with various ways to cook spider legs to tease Viktor.

  Viktor turned in early to get away from the two ‘food barbarians’ as he called his companions. Damian took first watch that night, it was uneventful and boring, just the way he liked it. He passed the watch to Arushi and went to bed wondering what the next leg of the journey would bring them.

  Damian wished he had kept his big mouth shut. Upon waking up he was greeted with a system notification.

  ‘Amitabha patrons. You have encountered your first disruption in this scenario.” The monks gentle voice echoed in the clearing. “As this has potential to be a setback, depending on the reward you choose, I am allowed to give you a bit of information. The Baba Yaga’s garden has been overrun by various spirits that cause harm to those she has…...working….in it. You must solve or remove each pest. I must repeat the systems words of caution, the Baba Yaga is not a benevolent person. Anything she gives you as a reward will have a cost associated with it. Exercise caution patrons, I wish you good luck.”