LogMotW:Quoth the Raven-Jason-6

Game log for the 2022/03/06 session of MotW:Quoth the Raven, as taken by Jason

It's been a couple weeks since the last session. It's early April now. Sougand has premonitions of someone trapped in a spiderweb. Sammy's having similar visions of talking spiders, like in Charlotte's web.

The Feds are knocking incessantly on Jabob's door. He opens the door, and they tell him that they just want to talk to him about his interests. They think there might be a point of mutual interest that he could help with. He cracks wise with them about how everyone is interested in yoga pants, but they assure him it's about disturbing things they've found on campus. He tells them they need to buy him dinner if they want to have a conversation. They take him down the street to the deli.

They hand him a crudely drawn map of sorts, found with the remains of ... something. They can't be seen to be looking into this, but they can offer him some selective amnesia and a modest stipend in exchange for his services. The pictures look like a dessicated corpse. He takes their offer and pay for the meal.

(As part of an advance this session, Jacob buys an ex-University panel van and expenses it to the Feds.)

Jacob calls Chet, who comes to the deli. Chet immediately identifies the map as one of the University steam tunnels. They call in the Scoobies and make a trip to the hardware store to buy supplies. Chet buys a backpack pesticide sprayer and fills it with bleach. He also mentions that since the campus police may know his car, they should let Sammy drive. It's midmorning, so when they knock on Sougand's door, he's in a terrible mood. He asks if they know where the giant spiders are yet, and Sammy says, "That makes sense."

Chet leads them into one of the buildings and down into one of the steam tunnels. They work on navigating toward an "x" symbol marked on the map. They find signs of large broken spiderwebs, and something lying on the floor, covered in webbing, that might help explain why the webs were broken. It looks like a human female. Chet takes his lighter to the floating strands of webbing. The woman has a weak and thready pulse and seems catatonic. As Jacob works on cutting through some webbing, he accidentally drops his machete, which makes a dreadful clang. Sammy tries to teleport the victim to the hospital, but can't. The spider he was seeing in visions tells him to stay and see this through. They decide to go back the way they came.

About halfway back to that entrance, Chet hears something making tink-tink-tink sounds behind them. Sougand tries to attune to it and sense it's in great pain, and thinks of "the doctor" as the biggest threat to it. Chet decides it's time to run for it, and to head for the basketball colliseum. They manage to outrun it, but it's still behind them. As they run, they notice some of the side corridors are blocked by webs. They emerge into the coliseum basement, find an out of the way area, and begin cutting the victim free. Chet searches her for clues, and determines that the spider was likely planning to suck all the juices out of her. Sammy pulls the car around, and then they take the woman to the hospital.

Sammy drops her off at the ER and explains that he's involved because he's cheaper than the ambulance. Sougand tells Jacob about the monster being afraid of the doctor, and Jacob desides to go look into mad science on campus. He can't find details on giant spiders, but all the clues do suggest it's a giant spiders. Based on spider lore and internet mythology, he figures there are probably multiple spiders. One theory says the spiders are a bioweapon, another that they're hostil cryptids. The Internet seems to think that fire and large projectiles can hurt it. Jacob decides that beanbag rounds should do a number on this thing. He also find a researcher right here at the U, named Dr Atsuko Popov.

Chet, Jacob, and Sougand go to Popov's office. It turns out to be the starred building on the map. They find her office from the wall directory, and there they find a sticky note saying, "In the lab." The sticky does not look new. Asking around reveals that the lab is in the basement, and the Dr is usually there, and people usually contact her via Zoom. Jacob suggests checking out her office, the door to which is locked. Jacob picks it and the team searches the office. It's extremely clean. It's too clean. There's no way a working professor operates here. The computer has research files on it, the office has an "I love me" wall, and in general she shows signs of being a real person. Jacob opens Zoom on her computer, changes the background, and chats the Dr, claiming to represent a science web site. She's super excited and asks them to come downstairs to B226. She can't leave the lab, but she can talk to them in the lab. Chet mutes the phone and says, "Aw man, she's going to feed us to the spiders." Jacob explains that they'll be in Pine Box tomorrow and will need to set up someplace with workable acoustics and lighting. She'll do an interview whenever but she needs to do the interview in her lab, period. Sougand attunes to her and senses that she's preparing for guests, but not in a good way. He tries to sense what she thinks is the greatest threat to her, and gets a vague reference to Arachne, from Greek myth.

Damien and Sammy are in the hardware store, getting materials for improvised anti-bug weapons. Every spider web they see, even the ones made by totally normal spiders of appropriate side, talks to him. They want him to return. One of them calls him "god-child." They hurriedly finish their business and rejoin the team. They disguise their weapons in gym bags and head to the lab.

Chet goes straight in to the lab, planning to blast Popov on sight. The lab turns out to be deserted, serene and sterile. One of the shelves has tools on it, with the tools zip-tied to the shelves. There are scratch marks on the floor and wall, like the shelves have been moved around. Then Jacob gets a bad feeling about something above him, and blasts a beanbag round into the ceiling. He gets sprinkled with ceiling tile dust. The others follow suit and go into panic fire mode, and discover a hole in the drop ceiling leading through the wall where the moving shelf is. Sammy goes to move the shelf while everyone reloads.

Moving the shelf reveals a large hole in the wall and a new lab. This is the real lab, whereas the other was just the potemkin lab. Chet, Damien, Sougand, and Jacob open a door that leads out of the fake lab, Damien using a road flare to burn the webs out of the way. They hear the skittering sound of arachnic legs moving around in front of them. Sougand attunes to the thing making the noises, and senses it's right in front of them, trying to drive them into a web, hoping to attack Damien or whoever's in front. Jacob gets some web on him, which he does not like, and falls a little behind.

Sammy goes into a hole in the wall and comes out somewhere totally different.

With Jacob behind, Sougand is tail-end Charlie, and suddenly discovers the Doctor behind him. She's a centauroid-spider thing, a drider, human from the waist up, spider below. Sougand screams. She stings him and the world begins to fade away as paralysis sets in. He tries to scream for help but mostly can't. Chet turns and shoots her in the face with a beanbag round. That's when he discovers that she has both spider powers and a handgun! Chet, Jacob, and Damien all begin blasting at her.

Popov scurries up the ceiling, trying to outmaneuver the party and escape. Jacob fires more beanbags at her.

Sammy tries to rejoin the group and intercepts some sort of spider-creature trying to outflank Damien, and rushes in to try to punch it. The spider rakes him with its claws, which is a lot of claws. Damien spins and tries to stab the spider, which at least gets its attention. Chet goes chasing after the Doctor, racking his shotgun to eject the beanbag rounds as he goes.

Sammy punches out quite a bit of the spider's blood. Sougand realizes what's happened and mutters an old Armenian blessing against poisons, which immediately begins to make him feel better. Sammy then starts banishing the monster, but can't make it go away quickly enough that it can't claw at him and Damien. Sougand hears something coming through the ceiling. He hastily bars them from this spot, which he hopes will protect them from the less human of them. Sammy hears the voice calling him "god-child" again.

Chet's catching up to the Doctor, following her trail of slime back to the lab, and blasts her with his shotgun. She falls dead, and then he empties his shotgun's tube into her body. Jacob, following right behind, empties his as well. The other three run to catch up with them. That gives them time to look around the lab. She kept notes on her experiments. Some of those notes say "deceased" but a few don't. Based on the descriptions, Sammy recognizes one non-deceased experiment as the spider he banished. That strongly suggests she's been making her arachnids out of people. He figures out where the person in the web was, and wants to run to check it out. The others agree, with Damien again in the lead with a road flare.

At one point Jacob gets distracted, and Chet has to try to burn him out. He's just untangling the web as Karen the spider leaps at them. Chet screams and leaps out of the way, leaving his shotgun in the web. Sougand spins and opens fire with his shotgun, driving her back. Sammy drops to a knee so Damien can use him as a shooting rest, and the spider starts retreating. Sougand fires at it some more as it pulls back.

Some guy wearing a blue shirt and a "Chuck" nametag comes down a ladder and asks what the hell is going on here. Chet tells him, which is all the reason Chuck needs to get the hell out of the there, and then Chet also convinces the rest of the gang to go burn the lab, thus ensuring that nobody tries to make more half-spider monster things.

A few days later, the Feds appear back at Jacob's door. He tells them the problem is taken care of and hands them a manila folder with his invoices and receipts.