The Spider-God's Bride

The Spider-God's Bride

• When?
  • In the month of Gold in the year of the Spider
• Where?
  • On the way to the city of Zul-Bazzir and in the city
• Who?
  • Sulili-Borsa, Shemite Bard
    • Nuadeen, Fighter from the Black Kingdoms
  • Decimus, Nemedian Venturer
  • Xenokrates, Nemedian Fighter
    • Verman, Aquilonian Fighter
  • Jing Feng-Fu, Mage from Khitai
  • Vallanus of Acre, Corinthian Explorer
  • Zekh, Cimmerian Thief
  • Giuditta, Zingaran Assassin
• What?

Sulili-Borsa hired as guard on a small caravan with other adventurers. The caravan was owned by a mysterious "Master" (Yetara, a priest of Yezud from Zamora) with his concubine Daniya and kushian henchman Sefu. He also had four kothian mercenaries as bodyguards. They took the Shamla pass and were lucky to get through with just a bribe of a hat to the leader of the Zaheemi tribesmen.

In the desert Jing Feng-Fu amazed everyone with his magics and Zekh bullied Verman by stealing and throwing away his most prized possession, a wooden club. When they found a lost ruin with a tetrahedral pyramid, they just had to investigate. Instead of treasures they discovered wights of the sand and ran away to all directions. The undead caught the heavily armored kothians and killed them. Everyone else was able to escape and even find their way back to the caravan.

After the last large oasis the encountered some blood-thirsty giant bats, a sink-hole and a huge ankheg. Cinzia and Giuditta both saved someone by making a sacrificial leap after them. Zekh stuck the aknheg in the neck with an arrow fired from it's back.

Once they reached Zul-Bazzir Yetara hired them as bodyguards to replace the lost kothians. He settled into the oriental dragon mansion of his "old friend", Zheng-Yan the wizard. Since the wizard was not present, he took over the master bedroom and the party had a tough negotiation with him about the guest rooms. Only some were able to convince him that they could best guard him from there and the rest had to take accomodations in the cramped servant's quarters in the yard. Xenokrates organized the defenses (even though he could not fortify the mansion more) with Giuditta as the assassination expert. The party managed to arrange their watches with the local guards so that they had spare time to see the pleasure district and spend their well-earned gold there.

One night a number of black-clad assassins did show up. Sulili-Borsa did his best to impress everyone with his fighting prowess while avoiding any real danger. The fight was tough, but the characters were well prepared. What they were not prepared for was the strange cocooning of their master and later in the night the strange banging coming from the underground shrine/lab. When the giant spider was able to web all three characters most well prepared for taking it on, the rest of the defenses disintegrated into chaos. Even though the educated party members had been able to keep the more superstitious ones from burning the library, now the torches used to burn the web got the mansion in flames. Sulili-Borsa was stabbed in the back by Daniya when he tried to rescue her! Apparently the spider was also trying to protect her when it killed Sefu.

After the fire the characters were able to rescue some books and valuables from the ruins. They presented these with an apology to Zheng-Yan when he returned to the city. They also returned the body and signet ring of Yetara to his cult and were awarded for this. They were both ready to forget about the assassins since Yetara was dead.