The lower city has recently been blessed by rain, and the valuable municipal collection of gutter rubbish is floating downwards, gently washing towards the sea. There are vestigial docks, at the base of the tall white cliffs, and there are even fishing boats, but they have nowhere to go, for not far out to sea, the fog begins. There have been rumours of food shortages, and of riots in this area, and also rumours that there is plenty to eat, and everyone is fine.

Dirk is humming a Minosian tune as he heads towards the water to stare back towards home.

Mortimer has found himself wandering about again, between the random gin encounter from the fog to trying to see if the ghosts? shades? in the Palace's kitchen has him now seeking out what the beaches have to offer. That and seeking out if it will rain rum or gin again. An amused smile upon his face as he wanders along, not really paying much attention to the world around him. Other than to look up when he hears a familiar humming.

Vitas watches the garbage float out to sea. It's a peaceful sort of thing to watch, if somewhat off-putting and weird. Speaking of off-putting and weird, Vitas had been investigating the Unicorn Cultists setting up shop in the Lower City. Those folks had sure got some strange notions into their heads. Possibly they can be sorted out though? Sifting through the sea of nonsense to find the occasional nugget of wisdom, eh? Vitas watches the tide of garbage for salvageable nuggets of something-or-other. Because, you never know . . .

Danielle has decided to map the dock area today and has the quill and parchment that has become a fixture on her person. she actually begins to make note of each boat and its condition as well as the genera layout

The rain, in short, continues to bless the area - but at least not as hard as it was.

Vitas rolls with advantage 0 at difficulty 15, using notice.
The result is a success.

The water thrums, the surface of the sea whips down, and an apple - a red one - floats past Vitas. Shiny-wet. But also new. Not bruised or broken. Bright.

Kynan is at the top of the cliffs, staring out, apparently, at the sea. Or maybe where fog starts, as the two are mostly synonymous.

Kynan rolls with advantage -1 at difficulty 15, using no talents or gifts.
The result is a success.

To Kynan, perched up on the cliffs, the roads that shine in the watery light are - perhaps ironically - a web of surfaces. It is all about scale, unless it is all about tooth and claw, or perhaps fur. Scale might be better... But that does look rather like a spider's web, if one is inclined to spot such things. The centre of it would be within the fog.

Vitas blinks. An apple? An apple. Hm, ok. An apple. Vitas fishes the apple out of the gutter and cleans it off. Hm, ok. Vitas looks up?stream? ?upgutter? to see where a fresh apple might have come from, all out of season. Unexpected. But not unwelcomed. Vitas looks up, tossing the appple contemplatively into and out of the palm of a meaty right paw.

Danielle waves to each person in turn as she notes them on the shore "I was going to after the rain stopped to do this but unicorn knows how long that would take

All out of season, all bright red. It feels fresh in Vitas' hand. There are a couple more coming as well. Two more, one red and one green.

Dirk is concentrating on the sky. He says "stop raining."

Mortimer is quite happy in the rain, holding his arms out, palms up. Face to the rain, just letting the wet run over him.

Dirk rolls with advantage -1 at difficulty 15, using no talents or gifts.
The result is a success.

Kynan continues to look out to sea for a bit, then seems to follow a line of something back towards the shore. That's when he notices a number of the others beginning to congregate, and then begins to move towards them.

Mortimer rolls with advantage -1 at difficulty 15, using no talents or gifts.
The result is a success.

To Mortimer, looking up, it seems for a moment as if the sky briefly flickers, like the rain was not there then was again, or like it brightened suddenly and then rememberered to be dark. It stays as wet as it was, but something definitely happened to the sky.

Dirk rolls with advantage 0 at difficulty 20, using no talents or gifts and spending will.
The result is a failure.

Vitas watches the parade of apples floating down the gutterwater. A sporadic and intermittent parade, to be sure, but a parade nonetheless. Vitas starts to watch upstream, following apples back to the ? source . . . ? Vitas whistles as he walks, a high - pitch high - intensity jaunty ole' tone. Vitas waves good - naturedly to any and everyone he passes, stopping to chat we those whom he knows . . . especially as he sees the group gathering! Viras pauses for a moment. Eh? What just happened to the sky? Huh what now?

The source of the apples is not far away. There is an apple barrel, and occasionally one is jumping out, miraculously not getting bruised, and landing in the gutter the barrel is next to, and bobbing downstream. *jump* *jump*... Unnatural behaviour, for apples.

Danielle notes the apple in vitas hand with a curious glance "where did you get that? " and then the others upon the waves. First, looking about for logical places such wares could originate an open crate, a ship. Then remembering recent events looks to the sky for falling apples

Danielle rolls with advantage -1 at difficulty 15, using no talents or gifts.
The result is a failure.

No apples fall, and the rain continues to do so. And the apples continue to behave unnaturally.

Mortimer opens his eyes in the falling rain and wet as the rain flickers from existing to not to back, to... WHAT? He blinks and goes to instinctively wipe his face though it no longer feels wet. Looking to Vitas and apples, with a little nod and smile, then to Dirk and Danielle with a little wave. "Apples? Marvelous." He steps a little closer to Dirk running his hand through the man's hair quickly to muss it up some. "What is that tune you were humming?"

Dirk says, "a song from my childhood. Did the rain do anything weird?"

Vitas waves to Danielle in greetings, and then *points* to the barrel with the jumping apples in it. Which are now, seemingly, jumping out of the barrel. All on their own. Vitas shrugs. More strangeness -es! 'Par' for the course . . . Vitas *tosses* Mort an apple. One of the clean ones. "Ode to Spring" Vitas tells Mortimer. Vivaldus. Composed for fife, snares, and String Quartet . . . originally. I think. Vitas thinks, pausing midstride to look up and to the left. He thinks so. Yes. Oh wait, that question about music was for Dirk. Hm. Vitas listes to Dirk then.

Kynan approaches from the path down the cliff, sauntering in his ever-so-irregular gait.

The apples are not far from where Kynan saw the people, and so there is likely to be an easy meeting... And then it happens. Sometimes, things are not pleasant and they happen around and even to arguably good people.
There is a sudden rising of the water as something comes up from under it, long legs out to sscrabble at the ground; A hideous spiderying thing covered in seaweed and barnacles surges its forebody up onto the shore.

Danielle blinks as vitas directs her attention to the jumping apples "Odd indeed. I'm not sure I would taste one. All things considered, " she advises

Amy is somewhat behind the others, having not yet come down the cliff side path. So she's behind Kynan, making her way down athletically, but not in any rush. She's not seen anyone at all, and is unaware of any issues.

Vitas shouts out a warning to the civilians and passers-by. He draws his Royal Guardsman's sword and shifts his shield down into place, and interposes himself midway between the spidery thing and anyone sensibly fleeing the scene. "Dirk! Looks like you get your wish!" Vitas points to the spider and grins. A wry and grim sort of toothy smile, appreciative of life's little ironies. Or life's large ugly spideries. Or both, just depending.

Dirk draws his sword and turns towards the creature.

The sea-spider waves its front legs in the air, bubbling as it advances.

Kynan mutters, "Where there's a web, it would not be surprising to find a spider. And tugging on a web is bound to call it..."

Mortimer is examining the apple that Vitas tossed to him, a little, "Aww. Thank you." Then as he's palming the appple and thinking of eating it, he's looking between Vitas and Danielle about the apples in the crate jumping. "Well that doesn't seem..." And now there's a spider climing out of the the crate, "Oh, no. nope. no. no..." Mortimer starts to back up from the apple spider, letting the others do with their swords and stabby things as they will. He'll just... be over there. Away from the spider.

Out of the sea comes the huge thing, bringing with it the horror of the sea-bed - methane stink and worse.

Danielle like mortimer has no intention whatsoever of tangling with this hairy critter and like mortimer just does her best backward scramble.

Vitas lifts his sword aloft, shouting out a cautionary note: "Hol' up! Tha' Spider be askin' us to not-kill-it please. . . lestaways, that's wha' all that leg -wavin' would mean, twer' it a wolfspider o' ordinary size . . . " Apple - spider, n' apple cider, aign't that -jus- th' strangest thing?" \Vitas lifts his sword aloft, shouting out a cautionary note: "Hol' up! Spider be askin' us to not-kill-it please. . . lestaways, that's wha' all that leg -wavin' would mean, twer' it a wolfspider o' ordinary size . . . Apple - spider, methane cider, aign't that -jus- th' strangest thing?" Vitas looks -behind- the spider, curiously. What's that thing up to?

Vitas rolls with advantage 0 at difficulty 15, using animal ken and spending will.
The result is a success.

Amy continues down the path, though she pauses as it seems she can hear voices. They must be talking really loudly, perhaps.

The spider, as far as Vitas can tell, is appealing to a female. But there are no gigantic female spiders around.

Dirk walks closer to the spider, sword down but drawn. He's being cautious but not threatening.

The people scrambling backwards from the spider are not, of course, expecting to find a bigger one. Surprise! The rain, which has been lashing down, has loosened the ground, and so Daniella - and Mortimer - get to find out two things together. One is that it was built on arches, and the other is that the arches are not strong enough to hold together properly when a rather larger sea-spider stirs underneath. The very road along which they were backing up begins to buckle, and... females of this species do not have signalling equipment to say 'do not hurt me' or 'I want to talk'. What they have is hunting instincts.

Difficulty has been set to 17 in this area.

Dirk rolls with advantage 1 at difficulty 17, using combat, combat trained.
The result is a success.

The apple barrel, meanwhile, tumbles over, spilling apples. These are unlikely to improve footing.

Danielle flat out screams but aldo loooks around for something with which to play whack a spider should it come toclose as she triees to scramble away

Danielle rolls with advantage -1 at difficulty 12, using no talents or gifts.
The result is a failure.

Kynan rolls with advantage -1 at difficulty 12, using no talents or gifts.
The result is a success.

Kynan quickens his pace towards the others, but then the ground just in front of him starts to give way, and he tries to come to a stop. He teeters at the edge, and planting his staff in front of him, pushes himself backwards to safety, though ends up landing on his butt.

Amy comes to where she can see Kynan sitting there. "Hey, Kynan," she calls as she continues to approach. Her eyes widen then as she sees what else is there. "Okay, this is different," is her comment.

Dirk runs forward to jump on the spider...

As Danielle and Kynan try to deal with the moving ground, the female stabs a leg into the ground. The only thing that saves Danielle from being then eaten by the spider is that its huge weight causes more of the arch underneath them all to crumble, and the multi-ton monster falls sideways.

Mortimer rolls with advantage 1 at difficulty 17, using occult, sorcery.
The result is a failure.

Mortimer is caught completely off guard and is flailing around to head back that way, or no, the first spider is that way. "Erm..." He waves at the second spider and in a panic tosses what he's not even sure of what it could be, but magic is going to happen. Not exactly the way that he wanted to reveal that he was able to use such things, but here we are.

Vitas sighs. So much for apples, then. -This- situation has rapidly gone 'pear-shaped' . . . Vitas moves uphill, post - haste, to cover Danielle and Kynan from the female spider's depredations. Shields are good for that purpose, for certain. Vitas' shield has a Unicorn on it. Courtesy of the Royal Guard armoury. All the better, Vitas muses, appreciative of the symbology.

Kynan rolls with advantage 1 at difficulty 20, using combat, fire mage.
The result is a success.

The glowing power between Mortimer's fingers pulses, twists, and hits the spider square in the thorax - and does nothing at *all* to it, although it does bounce off, hitting the apple barrel, and knocking it from its side and up into the air, so that it is airborne briefly, and in fact, after spinning and hitting the ground once, rolls at Mortimer. Sometimes life just is not fair.

Kynan, from his sitting position aims his staff at the spider, but as Vitas approaches, the line of sight is not quite as clear as he'd like, so he rolls to the side, still keeping his aim as best he can. "Down in front!" he yells as a bolt of fire gushes forth towards the spider.

And then there's Dirk, airborne as a huge monster struggles up out of the ground, and he's just strong enough to get up onto it, which is probably going to cause nothing but trouble for saga-makers trying to describe it later, but looks very cool at the time. There's the leg, there's the body... it is slimy and wet, like the bottom of the sea where it was too, and it's got a Dirk on it as the fire starts to spew.

Meanwhile the spider has, for the moment, decided to concentrate fully on the tiny delicious-looking morse of Vitas in front of it, and being a sea-spider it has hard-cased limbs and they are sharp. Built-in spears flash out for him.

Vitas rolls with advantage 1 at difficulty 15, using athletics,combat trained and spending will.
The result is a failure.


*chnk*

The sound of a spear made of high-calcium chitin going through Vitas is a fleshy, solid one.

Vitas nods. Yup, this looks familiar. Standing in the line of fire, so that the Royals can make their getaway. *OW.* Yup, this -feels- famliar, too. Vitas takes his supplemental calcium. He doesn't like it. But, he takes them. Probably good vs osteo-arthritis, right? Probably. Someday. Meanwhile: Ouch.

Kynan rolls with advantage 1 at difficulty 20, using occult, fire mage.
The result is a success.

Kynan's bolt of flame was true, heading directly for the spider when all of a sudden, it was now a Dirk/spider open-faced sandwich.... He calls out in a loud voice words in a language that is not intelligible to most, and the bolt changes direction, angling down to hopefully strike at the spider's legs and the ground.

The spider-spear has Vitas held for a moment, but there is a lot of fire in the air and a lot of Dirk on the spider, and perhaps the huge thing does not fancy its chances. She begins to retreat, taking Vitas with her, and then the fire hits, cracking the front legs with its heat, or at least, boiling the water inside, which is the same things. Vitas gets a free spear, and Dirk gets a moment in which to strike, as the beast rears up and he can get at its eyes and face without falling off forwards.

"Eeep!" Mortimer watches in horror as the shot bounces from spider to the apple barrel. Just frozen, watching it in flight, as it heads back down and rolling towards him. With a shake of his head, looking at the spider that deflected the shot, then to behind him to the first spider. Things don't look good for him. He looks to the apple that he still has and decides to take a bite of it. Can't die hungry.

The apple barrel is kind - it thuds into Mortimer, carrying him neatly towards the sudden - and thank heavens for that - absence of First Spider. It seems that the male, very sensibly, decided not to be in the vicinity of noise, hijinks, and angry sea-wolf-spider three times its size.

The barrel rolls off into the sea, leaving Mortimer behind, with his apple still in his hand, and relatively mild bruising.

Dirk leans over and stabs the spider in the eye. He stabs then twists his sword . Dirk does this to as many of its eye segments as he can get to without falling off.

Amy is not going anywhere near this disaster at the moment! She simply stays where she is, though she does try to keep an eye on who is going to need medical attention.

The spider jerks backwards and down, with Dirk still on it. It is not dead, but it is hurt badly, and it is fleeing back to its underwater lurk-dom. He has time to jump off, but if he wants to stay, he is going to be fighting a badly wounded aquatic thing alone, underwater.

Mortimer shakes his head a little, then watching the apple barrel take off leaving him behind. "Yes. I'll... just sit here." He flops backwards to watch the battle with the second spider slightly upside down as he's laying down.

The apple barrel sinks, which is rather unusual for a barrel, but perhaps it too wanted to be free of all of this.

Kynan looks around warily, seeing if any more spiders wanted to join the fray. But seeing nothing at present, rises to his feet.

The twin smells of roasted apples and roasted sea-spider rise up with him.

Dirk takes a flying leap off the injured spider and yells "I am ok."

And the spider recedes, leaving behind only the massive yawning gap in the street. Water fountains up from it, pushed out by the great thing's bulk, and the sound of waves beneath can be heard, but the spider is gone. Comparatively, at least, silence reigns. And Triage begins.

Vitas grimaces in agony as he's stabbed with a high-calcium spider leg. Non - comfy. The situation takes a turn for the worse as he's then hoisted up off of the ground while still uncomfily shish-kabob'ed. Un - good. The situation '?improves?' somewhat as Kynan boils the spider's front - insides, causing its forelimbs to crack open and rupture. The downside of this being, of course, that one of said forelimbs is / was stabbing said Vitas. Now, being -occasionally- stabbed does kind of come with the territory of being a Royal Guard. Yes. Sure. He'll give you that. Readily. "Explodey-stabbed," though . . . that's some new territory. "Ow. Crap. Argh," explains Vitas while passing out, bleeding, perforce.

Amethyst rolls with advantage 1 at difficulty 17, using healing, healing nature.
The result is a success.

The rain is putting out the last of Kynan's fires. All should be well!

Kynan rolls with advantage 1 at difficulty 15, using occult, magic sense.
The result is a success.

As things get safer, Amy heads for the obviously most injured - Vitas. "Hang in there," she says with a smile, as she starts working on getting out the bits of spider leg, along with stabilizing the situation. "Could someone arrange a tarp or something for a bit," she calls out. "It's hard to work when everything is getting wet."

Dirk appears out of nowhere. "It was my fault."

To Kynan, seeing the magical fluxes in the area, it seems that there is only one problem here - the apple in the ointment, as it were. There is a fading feeling of something odd where the apple barrel was, but the thing itself is now lost. It might have been some kind of odd enchantment, for his stranger senses pick up some hint of magical intent, but it is already being washed away by the rain.

Kynan walks slowly around the area, somewhat testing his steps on untrodden ground first before committing to each. "Given that there was some sort of web underneath us here, perhaps the events were not all that unlikely. But it seems to be gone now."

Vitas is still mercifully unconscious as the splintered bits of ruptured spider leg are dug out of his person. Thus, he logically won't at all mind the sopping conditions and strange magic residues. Vitas -tries- not to smell like 'wet dog.' But he might. For some reason. Odd, that. 'Luckily,' he's got bigger problems and this minor oddness may well go un - noticed.

Dirk says "I tried to pull up the image of the pattern in my mind to change the weather. Did it work?"