You give a yell, and bash your shield with your weapon. You don't know any crazy arachnid noises (not when you're lucid, anyway), but it seems to work well enough. You suspect they don't much care for the grass, considering it sticks out like a sore thumb in this cave. The warriors are quick to answer, but so is Yunikki. A quick, but clumsy strike discourages three of them from charging you, while your minions make sure they don't get too far, either. Of course, not your intention. The alchemists get to work with their flasks, and you send your minions forward. The lingering acid is splitting some of the spiders, preventing you from getting overwhelmed. Of course, you hadn't quite accounted for them jumping on you. You throw one off of you easily enough, but you need to grab a leg to throw the other one, the rough hairs unleashing a most unpleasant feeling even through your carapace. Suddenly, you get a dousing of poison right in the face. Some of it gets in your mouth, and you can't help but groan in surprise as you spit the bitter poison out. The rest of the poison volley seems entirely focused on you, and you only barely manage to block about a quarter of the shots. The rest of the party is perfectly fine, at least...
Fortunately, your minions have reached the spitters, and have started assaulting them. They're not quite as effective as you hoped, but those spitters aren't quite as good when the poison doesn't even work. After taking down two more spiders assaulting you, another small horde attacks, three of which descend from the ceiling! You hadn't accounted for more coming in! All at once, your alchemists are cornered. Eveline suddenly branches a knife and stabs one of them right in the head in an uncharacteristic show of knifeplay. You didn't even remember she had that knife! Sucy is quick to follow up with an acid dousing on another, but Meandra's in trouble. She's just backstepping a bit, looking unsure. The spider raises its front legs, before pouncing!
Then, the spider is knocked aside by a sudden flash of a vine! The vine suddenly came out of Meandra's sleeve, and Meandra is quick to whip the spider with the thick, thorny material. It's not too effective, but it does repel the spider quite well. Long enough for Yunikki to come around and stab the spider from behind. Your undead minions have finished off the spitters, although they took heavy casualties. You've only got two spiders left! But of course, you're all rather capable. You took a couple bits in the struggles, and the occasional pincer, but you don't feel anything worse than a sting or bite. They go down in one good strike, generally, so even those reinforcements are no trouble. The worst they do is nip at your legs, but they can't get through your carapace. all it does is hold you down, and allow the alchemists to perform some of their stuff. Or just have Meandra slap them away.
You didn't know she was so good with a whip. Hmmm.
Eventually, with the minions keeping any runners in place, you beat off the spider wave. You're the only one with any kind of injuries, and it's generous to even call them that. You're completely covered in webbing, though, and you suspect that they were crawling all over you in their attempts to web you up. You suspect that they try to go for the biggest target first, but they'll need to do a lot better than THAT to take you down. Yunikki, however, is in a bit more trouble. She needs to cut at some of the webbing to stop herself from getting stuck. Her off hand was getting locked up, even, but the stickly silk gets off her plate easy enough.
When you sniff, though, you realise the true victim of the battle was your hygiene. You accidentally snort up a little poison, and you're glad you can't smell anything for a second. You are SOAKED in poison. But you don't really feel anything...
Theory confirmed, then. You ARE resistant to the poison. Trust me, you'd be feeling it if you were affected. I must smell awfulOh, kind of like pineapple, actually. Weird.The party continues onwards into the caves, the constant pitter-patter of legs serving as a constant reminder of just how outnumbered you all are. The torches remain effective at keeping the small ones at bay, though, allowing you to carve a path through it all. With two alchemists at your side, there's absolutely no trouble in keeping torches going. The fires are a little discolored, being a bit more red than what you're used to, but it's more than worth it just to have more a constant source of light. They were smart enough to stock up on sticks, too. You're the only one not carrying a torch, as you just don't have a free hand. You're the only one with a shield, after all. Speaking of the shield, the grass doesn't seem to take too kindly to the poison, you can see a bit of brown creeping in on the grass.
There are two possible directions. Choose a direction and choose how many spiders you'll resurrect. You're only limited by your mana at this point, there's more than enough spider corpses. Set up a campA campfire should keep the small ones away, and the alchemists may be able to make something to keep them away from an area. It won't stick to you when you're on the move, however.Split the partySome people go top, some people go bottom. What could go wrong?
OtherThere's plenty of options.Basic Stats
Level: 9
HP: 21/25
Mana: 36/36(14 mana invested) (i also noticed I made a mistake on the math last update. the upkeep is 7 per spider. It didn't matter at all, though)
Stress: 10/75
Thirst: Sated
Items and equipment
Equipment:
Carapaced leather armor
Sword
Gardener's Shield
Bolas(x4)
Handmade Bola
Poison covering
Items:
Spare Clothing (x4)
Blood Vials (x9)
Poisonbox
Journal
Spellbook
Cookbook
Stashed away:
Spare clothing (x10)
Fancy clothing
500 coins
Minions
2 spiders (very badly injured)
Skills and spells
Magic:
Resurrect vermin: Allows you to resurrect very small creatures such as rats(invests 2 of your max mana) (no mana cost)
Resurrect average beast: Allows you to resurrect creatures such as dogs, cats and other similar-sized creatures.(invests 7 mana) (no mana cost)
Resurrect Humanoid: Allows you to resurrect humanoid creatures. (Invests 10 mana) (Costs 15 mana)
Reshape minion plus!: Allows you to majorly change the appearance of your resurrected minions.
Minion Vision: Allows you to see what a minion sees. The minion must have eyes.
Animate Piece: Allows you to animate just a piece of dead tissue. It requires your constant attention, and cannot act independently. (Drains 1 mana per three seconds)
Graft: Allows you to use dead tissue as a replacement limb. Requires a lot of mana. (2 per second) (average limb takes around 20 seconds to properly graft)
Gather Soul: Allows you to make a soul visible. You could try putting it in a flame of some sort to keep it around. (10 mana)
Soul battery: Allows you to use a soul-infused flame as a small mana-boost. This snuffs it out, however
Undead flashbang: Allows you to blow up a minion for a flash-bang effect. (10 mana)
Stitch: allows you to close a wound and stop bleeding as fast as you can stitch. Costs very little mana, but requires something to stitch with.
Siphoning Cloud: Breathe out a cloud that drains the life from victims and gives it to you. Adds a LOT to intimidation (5 mana)
Smoke Cloud: Breathe out harmless but thick smoke. (2 mana)
Deathbolt: A bolt that hurts the body's connection with it's soul. Causes minor wounds to appear over the body as it attempts to compensate (2 mana)
Doombolt: A more powerful version of the above (5 Mana)
Familiar
Tiny Skeletal Dragon
Skills:
Poison Stinger (Stings a bit)
Oral Fixation: Can cast spells spells from the mouth.
Draining Limbs: Can drain blood using pedipalps.
Major experience in blocking and swords.
Climber
Crafty: Bolas
Cooking skill: Excellent
Corpse Cutting: Quite Decent.
Animal handling: inexperienced.
Necromantic knowledge
Soul Sniffer