Spiders and the wild, wild East

Yesterday started with a small Wendiehunt to kill the time Lafa was sleeping. We cleared the area around the bagsellers hut, where several Nightwendeckas were waiting for us. While i wished for a Morningwendie next, we encountered a Treegiant instead. It took quite some time, but eventually we had chopped enough bits out of him that he couldn´t stand anymore. In the battle Frenzymac once more showed his extraordinary fighting skills.
As soon as Lafa was awake, we headed towards Ardvell. After i had been promised that they wouldn´t let me drown in my small boat, i was still a bit suspicious, but felt secure enough to join. We landed near the portal cave and i started luring one spider after the other in the raised weapons of the group. After a time, we got bored and so bolder and decided to venture inland. We turned west toward the next safe, where we were captured for a while. A treacherous dense fog had appeared where one could nearly not see one's own hands anymore, not to talk of spiders creeping up. Howls of Ch'omaks from the highlands came clearly to our eyes, carried very far by the fog and so we made a picknick in an abandoned hut until the weather cleared up and we could glimpse the stars again. Excellent healing, trapping and luring brought us as far as Burh Fierlen. My heart always gets filled with pity when i visit this town. Its inhabitants have to endure endless rain, and only few houses have roofs solid enough to get dry indoors. On our way back then happened what we had feared all the time. A particularly strong Mammutspider sank its teetch deep in Pit Buls chest, leaving a terrible mess of broken bones, torn flesh and blood that even Frenzy andLafa together couldn´t fix. They even tried to help Pit with 2 potions to stop the blood, but ti didn´t help. But a great chainrun from Falk and some dodging by the rest of us brought us through the spiders to the boats and eventually back home again.

In the evening it was time for another shopping trip. This time an Elithren was the organiser, so as you might guess the destination was a shirt-tailor. The aim was to reach the town in the Noidcaves to buy white shirts. After our start, that was a bit chaotic i called for a leader, knowing that we wouldn´t survive the Noids when everyone acted on his own. After a bit of humming and hawing i took charge and we set out. Quickly we were surrounded by dozens of bulky bodies walking on 8 legs.
It took some time, but with sticking together and eliminating the biggest dangers first we did well enough and eventually reached the dark caves. When we entered, hundreds of facet eyes reflected the light we had brought with us. A fierce stuggle at the entrance began. After regrouping outside our second approach won us the entrance. Luckily Leda remembered pretty well where the town was hidden and so we could keep close to walls or borders and not had to fight every Noid in the caves. They breed incredibly fast in the dark, we would never have approached if we had tried to kill every one of them. At last we made it close to the town. Nasty blue and green Arachnoids were lurking here, making the fight for the narrow path to the city one of our hardest tasks, but in the end we triumphed. Rion Taur'ar bought shirts for everyone who wanted one (and had the money for it) and we headed to the south, were Leda opened a portal back home.

Quite a lot of people still wanted to hunt, so we decided to go nearly the same way again, but this time turn off to the east of the Wastelands, to Ravyn. We entered by climbing down the cliff in a place Gravier and me had discovered a while ago. A bit of chaos was the result, as some people started fighting in the plain, while others were still climbing down or waiting above for their turn. As a result we fell one by one. Well, not quite, bleeding severely i managed to climb up again, but couldn´t lend anyone else a hand. Calling for help made Frenzy and BlackCat aware of our misfortune. After i fetched them, i showed Blacky where to climb down and she fastened long chains on some fallens. Together we pulled them up to us and so after a while everyone was alive again.
We travelled through the plains that are inhabited by bisons and horses as well as some nomads travelling with their covered wagons. Far in the east, on a beautiful clearing in a small forest some of them have established a small settlement, where they rest and offer fights with their Zebras to earn money.
Further east we could see a fiery highplain, but found no place to climb up and explore it. We were busy enough keeping all the animals in Ravyn from stampeding over us as it was. A further addition to the area are treacherous swamps, where one skins in deeply in the mud, causing dozens of Moskitos to rise from their rest and buzz about. Another deadly mistake can be to walk too close to the small holes on the ground for they are a sure sign for a cobras den. At one occasion we angered 4 of them at once, but as they only tried to threaten us away and didn´t bite, we could quickly kill them.