10 Lharvion 998 - Heron

Why was I lead here?
I may never know, interpretation of the spirits is best left up to those with more experience.
What I do know is that here are a people in need of help.
It may be that a great enemy will soon be upon us.

Let me relate to you the events of last night.

In an attempt to better understand the people of HighBarrow, I ventured to an Inn, the Blue Fire Inn - so named because of a magic flame outside the entrance.
In this place, they consume various amounts of poisons, presumably a social way of building up tolerance to its effects.

Of the people present, three stood out from the crowd:
Alex, a warrior following the Silver Flame, judging by her shield.
Zebadire, a wizard of some sort.
Saffron, a druid, obviously civilized, judging by her weapon - a scimitar.

Fate, or destiny drew us together in this place, at this time.
We are all where we are supposed to be, when we are supposed to be there - some day I may truly understand this.

Highbarrow was being attacked by spiders, large ones - capable of carrying off their victims.
Those of use with the courage to do so rushed outside to confront these creatures.
It was at this time that Alex proved herself to be an experience and capable tactician. I will observe her and follow her suggestions for now.

These spiders, whilst numerous, proved to be little challenge to a group such as us. It was determined that a child had been taken, and we resolved to track her down. Saffron provided the means to track - a pet wolf.

I had heard vague rumors of these, but never before encountered one - living spells. They proved no more challenge than the spiders, but interesting none the less.

We encountered a large spider guarding a hole in the ground. I inquired to Alex as to what tactics would be best - she said that we should lure it out and then attack it. Her tactics worked beautifully; the spider approached, and I cut it down in three stokes. I complimented her on her choice of tactics.

The hole lead down to a small tunnel complex. It looks like something burrowed about a long time ago, and some debris/dirt has accumulated at the bottom giving a fairly stable flat path.

Not having any scouts, we were ambushed fairly often by spiders, fast ones with a weakening poison.

A few interesting places:

• A room with large mushrooms, one of which attacked Alex. She didn't appear to need any help, but rather than risk losing her and her knowledge of tactics, I stepped up and cut it down.
• A small rock slide revealed a dead trapped dwarf - possibly he teleported into rock, we found an interesting Compass on the body
• A sleeping chamber, the spiders in here were easy to dispatch.

A shifter by the name of Geraint joined us, search for a shepherd and some sheep.
Shortly afterwards, we found a cocoon room, more like a meat locker. In here after battle a huge spider, we discovered three still living people - Dog's daughter, the town guard, and a shepherd. Scattered about we also so sheep in cocoons, some alive, some dead.
The spiders had impregnated every creature with eggs, ready to hatch. Luckily, Saffron identified the eggs and removed them all before any could hatch.