Session 20. (21/8/09)

To answer the questions posed last time, at the fifth burrow our heroes find more of the same - spiders! Miyoshi refines his tactics and has the party creep up close - but not too close - to the burrow and then he shouts a challenge to the spiders. Everyone is successful in their sneaky ways and Miyoshi bellows good and hard. One normal-sized giant spider scurries out, evades Miyoshi's spear and runs straight into Yoshi's two swords and Kachamaru's one, killing it. Then the remainder of the burrow's inhabitants emerges, rather more cautious but with strength in numbers: two large spiders, one normal and seven juveniles. Miyoshi steps straight up to the largest spider and pokes away at it with his spear. He misses a couple of times, gets one big hit but mostly smaller ones, and whittles away at his almost-equal-sized foe. Yoshi and Kachamaru continue working in tandem and take on the other large spider. They both score good hits, but the spider does too, biting and poisoning Kachamaru with a L4 fast paralytic poison. Kachamaru's health struggles with the poison and soon his speed is somewhat diminished, though not enough to make too much difference. Kachamaru keeps on hitting the spider while Yoshi is fumbling with his two swords, but then Yoshi regains his poise and makes a critical, killing blow with triple damage. Kokuma takes the second normal-sized totate-kumo and dispatches it with two efficient swings of his enormous club. He moves on to a juvenile spider and with one efficient swing, clubs himself on the head. He staggers around dazed for a turn, then pulls himself together, and with one more efficient swing of the club, launches the spider into the next life. Mineo takes charge of mopping up the juveniles and kills one with his first attack. Then he manages to stun himself and has to neglect his duties for two rounds. When he recovers, he swings and hits another juvenile, but not hard enough to kill it, then critically misses it and has to wait another round before he can deal the killing blow. Haku seems to attract spiders and is surrounded by three juveniles. At his customary slow rate he stabs at one with his tanto, hitting it twice in three rounds, but it is barely enough for the spider to notice.

Miyoshi is similarly taking a long time to kill one spider, and things take an unsettling turn when the spider finally manages to land a fang - or two - on Miyoshi, doing 5 and 6 damage respectively, but failing to get its poison past his immune system. Yoshi and Kachamaru have been working through the juveniles, killing one each. Kachamaru helps out Haku by killing one of his juvenile tormentors, then he and Yoshi team up again and finish off Miyoshi's large foe. Kokuma concludes the battle by helping Haku with the last two juveniles, which was fortunate because at this point Kachamaru's health starts to fail and the poison gets the upper hand for a while. By the time Kachamaru finally manages to fight off the poison his speed is down to 6, a fraction away from lethargic. Miyoshi orders Yoshi, Mineo and Kokuma into the empty burrow the smash the eggs and torch the place while Haku overexpends his power to cast Pure Body and restore some of Kachamaru's speed.

Wasting no time on healing or sympathy for Kachamaru, Miyoshi immediately orders an attack on burrow number six. The party sneaks up, Miyoshi shouts - and four spiders emerge looking for prey and finding that they are it. Miyoshi attacks the biggest spider as usual, a medium-sizer, and hits it. Yoshi joins him and also gets a hit. Kachamaru wastes no part of his solitary action, landing a hit for 8 damage against an 8-hit-point juvenile spider. Kokuma takes care of another juvenile with one swing, but Mineo misses the last spider (a juvenile). Miyoshi finishes the medium spider so Yoshi quickly switches to the last one, Mineo's unsullied target, and sullies it to end the fight before any spider even bared a tooth. "Fangs", corrects Mineo. "You're welcome," responds Yoshi.

With burrow six stomped and torched, and the day drawing to a close, Miyoshi leads the party back to the first burrow, which they use as a camp for the night. Miyoshi assigns watches to everyone but himself (naturally) and Kachamaru, so he can maximise his recovery. During the second watch, Yoshi hears a strange noise - like a wire brush being dragged across a metal surface. Yoshi wakes the others and leads them in the direction of the noise. In the dim starlight they can make out two spidery shapes. They all loose arrows in the direction of the shapes, except Haku who looses Darts of Water, but none find their target. Switching to swords, the humans close on the arachnids. Miyoshi swings at the first shape and find he has killed a juvenile. Yoshi, Kachamaru and Kokuma swing at the other shape and find they have killed a large giant spider. Kachamaru casts Light and Mineo finds a cocoon that the large spider had been dragging. Haku cuts it open to reveal an Ainu man - alive but paralysed. They take him back to their camp and the night passes without incident.

In the morning, Haku replenishes his power and casts Pure Body on the now-alert Ainu before sending him back to Yakumo with a status report. Yoshi and Kokuma follow the spider tracks and, projecting them forward, work out where their burrow must be. After a brief search they find it and return to the others. Then, with a Soil Blessing from Haku for everybody, they set out once again.

At the burrow, everyone sneaks successfully, but Miyoshi's shout is more of a croak. However, it does the trick as the burrow disgorges one large and four juvenile spiders. Miyoshi takes the large one as usual and lands two good hits. Kachamaru and Yoshi rush over to join in but in his haste, Yoshi trips and dazes himself while Kachamaru lands two good hits. The spider takes advantage of Yoshi's misfortune and bites him, but Yoshi manages to resist the poison. Kokuma take two swings and fells two juveniles; Mineo takes two swings and fells one juvenile. Haku fires a Dart of Water but doesn't fell any juveniles. Miyoshi, Yoshi and Kachamaru finish off the large spider and Kokuma finishes the last juvenile.

Miyoshi takes Mineo and Kokuma into the burrow to smash the eggs but are surprised by two juvenile spiders that jump out and try to bite them. Fortunately, the juveniles do not have the skill to get past samurai armour, even though it is rather worn and patched with hides. Miyoshi swings and misses, Kokuma swings and kills, Mineo swings and injures and Miyoshi swings and finishes. The three catch their breath, stomp the eggs and leave the burrow burning.

The warriors (and Haku) pause for a council of war: how many more burrows do they have to deal with? In the past, six or seven haven't been enough, and they have only cleared seven so far. But as they think more, the more a pattern occurs to them - eight spiders attacked the village, Yakumo means Eight Spiders, eight... - maybe there are nine burrows ("Eight sir!") eight burrows with eight populations of spiders that attack the village every year. So there must be just one more to go. Cheered by this thinking, they split up to search the plain for the final burrow. Yoshi's hunting expertise soon narrows it down to a narrow ravine, perfect for spiders to live in. They can't find the burrow, but they know they must stumble across it eventually. Kachamaru readies his Stage Flash spell to blind the spiders, and sure enough the warriors spring the spiders' trap and are confronted by one medium and six juvenile spiders. Kachamaru triggers his trap and five of the spiders are blinded, and all of them fail to bite any of the heroes. Miyoshi take on the medium spider and lands a slight but critical blow, doing 4 damage but stunning the spider. He follows up with a critical Precision Strike, doing 14 damage. Yoshi hits a juvenile with two swords, but the first kills it. He repeats this trick on a second juvenile. Kachamaru hits a juvenile for 9 damage, almost killing it and completely knocking it out. He finishes it off with his second attack. Kokuma kills a juvenile then injures one that was attacking Haku. Haku finishes it off. Mineo swings and misses twice. Miyoshi finishes off the medium spider and Yoshi and Mineo slice up the last juvenile.

Yoshi, Kachamaru and Kokuma take their turn to clear the burrow, and now they are surprised to find four spiders still inside. However, they are only juveniles and fail to get any bites, while Yoshi kills one with the first of his two sword swings, Kokuma mortally injures one and Kokuma smashes a third. Yoshi takes on and kills the fourth and Kachamaru finishes the injured one.

With the plumes from eight burning burrows behind them, the six warriors return to a heroes' reception and four days of feasting and a lot of honour. And as we pull back from the village scene, smoke from the cooking fires drifting lazily into the sky and sounds of happy laughter wafting over the broad valley, the view becomes framed by a material that seems, as it comes into better focus, to be lustrous, silky, almost woven; a disc of material covering a hole in a hillside overlooking the valley, a narrow slit in it where something might look out over the valley and its inhabitants...

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