PLANET: A Survivalist’s Guide (17 of N)

Day Twenty-one, evening. I curse all spiders and all spider-women with a mighty curse! These tunnels press in on us from all sides, and when I close my eyes I dream of home, hot showers, and F——’s bed. We crouch in a narrow cleft off the main tunnel, which spirals down from the surface to a point surely not far above or below the surface of the Living Ocean, and supplies ingress to the unholy chambers beyond. The stink of Luba’s repellent oils wafts off of Grog, and keeps the spiders at bay, yes, but also any joy or peace; I feel a mighty and insensate dread.

Let me back up. We headed southwest through the forest to the center of the Country of Spiders, to that strange vast canyon full of roiling black spiders we call the Living Ocean. Briefly we considered climbing down the thousand feet or so of clifface there directly, and trusting to the spider-repellent to clear us a path on the dying god’s skin, but this we all agreed was a reckless notion. Instead we began to circumnavigate the Ocean, staying within sight of the cliff-edge, seeking some landmark or easy way down.

It has crossed our minds that perhaps the shadar-kai Planet Cult does not fear and hate the dying god (as we would like to believe) but rather worship it directly as an avatar of Planet in their wrong and twisted theology. Further, our intelligence from Dhraz the prisoner included a vague reference to a Cult “brood pit” north of the Living Ocean, where perhaps they tame the mind-worms. We have operated under the assumption this brood-pit is a structure to the north of the Country of Spiders, somewhere in the fungal waste south of the mountains and New Hope, but it is not impossible that we will discover some vast shadar-kai fortress perched on the edge of the Living Ocean itself.

In our transit we saw no such thing. After a few hours of hard hiking (someday soon I must learn the ritual of phantom steeds to ease our way), we sighted a cleft in the cliffside, perhaps another ile ahead of us, visible as the canyon wall turns from west to southwest. Far more important to this narrative however, a veritable sea of spiders swarmed out of an inconspicuous hole in the ground and nearly consumed us all! Grog managed to save himself only by applying one of the four doses of Luba’s repellent. We blocked the tunnel entrance with alchemical fire, and I scorched the remaining spiders on the surface, but again we were left panting and sore.

With Grog’s repellent applied, however, we felt we had no time to waste recuperating, and, bidding Luba and Binch wait our return, we stuck close together and plunged into the depths. We ventured down slowly and carefully, and to our relief the repellent did its job: the spiders that covered every surface parted around us like waves around a breaker. In the shadowy light of my dark light we ventured on and down. I believe that the tunnel is a fortuitous geological formation, a natural cavern worked by flowing water, which likely predates the Living Ocean and the blight on Planet’s surface. At times we had to crawl, at times we used our ropes to work our way down twenty or thirty foot sheer drops. It was during one such tense moment that we all heard Luba, shouting from above and behind us.

Reluctantly we backtracked, and found her and Binch huddled together among the spiders, in the lee of her relic amulet. Apparently she had received a sending from a New Hoplite mercenary of her acquaintance, a dangerous man named Harper. Harper claimed that he had news, that Irina had been kidnapped (!) and that he was on his way to the spider cave (!) to meet us and escort us on a rescue mission.

Naturally we saw through this obvious trap. When Harper cast another sending on Rhogash, he suggested that the mercenary and his comrades descend into the spider tunnel to meet us – at which point we would ambush them, Valley style. Instead we received another sending from a new source, perhaps Morgan himself and perhaps one of his followers, indicating that he knew our mission and would be eager to bribe us into turning over any godsblood we obtained to him.

The petty machinations of the decadent New Hoplites bored us, and we disregarded their attempts at subtrefuge, choosing instead to simply press on down the tunnel. Luba and Binch we warned of Harper’s probable treachery, and set back towards the surface.

Finally at the bottom of the tunnel, where now we sit, we found a