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"Yes" Babushka replies to Imani. "Could that be your sister wife's voice?"

She looks down at the webbing below, if there are bats shrouded in it, surely there must be a spider... spider? Babushka's heart begins to move faster, she draws out the longtooth dagger and scans the whole chamber for the foe that must be there. Does the fungus staff react?

Babushka does not see any spiders, although the webbing is thick enough at points that just about anything could be hiding down there. The Fungus Staff remains limp.

"I can barely hear it from here to be honest, so I'm not sure," Imani says. "Though, it seems unlikely that we would find her this soon. Whoever it might be, we should at least check it out."

"Yes I think we should" Babushka answers. "Locky, are you already on the way?" she asks, knowing the kender's curiosity.

"I heard something too, rather like someone rather sad." She puts her little hands on her hips. "We should find out who it is shouldn't we...?" She says as she moves forward slightly, "Coming?" she says to Babuskha.

Hear Noise: 1d100=22

"Remember the cages." Jerrard adds as they prepare to move, "There could be a surprise waiting, couldn't there?" He keeps his blade out and level, the torch ready in the other hand.

Listening more carefully, Locky definitely hears the voice again, sobbing softly. It's a woman's voice, to be certain. It's coming from upstairs, in one of the upper cells in the south.

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(OOC: Is the party climbing one of the staircases? If yes, which one? Or are they going to climb into the pit full of webbed up critters? There is no discernible way down there, other than to jump or perhaps use some rope to climb down.)

Reaching into a pocket Locky produces a coin, flipping it up in the air she catches it deftly. "Dragons!" She smiles, "Right, I think we go right." With that she quickly scans the area with her keen eyes, looking for anything like a trap. "People do like to put things in the way for us Kender you know."

Odds=left, Evens=right. 1d6=4
Find Traps: 1d100=68 Fail

Locky spends a good six minutes searching for anything that might resemble a trap, but finds nothing out of the ordinary.

This allows the humans (and donkey) to catch up. Jerrard's torch limits the gnome's and kender's vision considerably.

"Looks like...some kind of prison. A good place to stash a princess," Ulster considers as he looks around.

Nobody else has anything further to add, so the party proceeds forward, up the stairs, with Babushka and Locky in the lead.

The torchlight flickers as they ascend, casting warped and scary shadows against the stone walls. The only sounds are their footsteps and the sobbing of the woman's voice, along with her occasionally saying something to the effect of "help me." The entire chamber has the slightly musky scent of decay to it.

It is when the girls reach the thirteenth step that things go afoul. The step itself suddenly unhinges, dropping Babushka and Locky down below. Moments later, it flips back up, as if nothing had happened.

It's a bit of a drop, over twenty feet. But luckily the webbing below catches them both, preventing the hard impact to the ground. However, they now find themselves stuck! Locky, still invisible, finds she cannot free herself at all. Babushka, the stronger of the two, finds she can attempt to wiggle herself free, but it will take time.

Thuskar quickly rushes back down the stairs and looks out over the pit, trying to see them. There is no way down there for him, other than to jump or try and climb down with a rope or something similar. "Are you okay?" he calls out.

As Babushka had feared, this is when the creator of all of this webbing makes its appearance. It is a spider, six feet in diameter, but not like any spider Babushka has seen before. It is some kind of clockwork spider, a frightful amalgam of chitin, flesh, gears, and tarnished silver plating. It's not certain if it can see the kender or not, but in either case, the spider ignores Locky altogether and immediately begins approaching the gnome.

"At the moment, yes, but there's a huge half-mechanical spider that's coming to eat me!" Babushka screams at the top of her voice, at least half-hysterical. Frantically, she tries to wiggle at least her hands and weapons free.

(does that spider count as species enemy, too?)

Thuskar pulls out his crossbow and begins loading a bolt. "We need light down here!" he calls to the others. Leaving the donkey on the stairs, Ulster hurries down, as well, drawing his bow.

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(OOC: I would say so. Despite its name, the clockwork spider does appear to have organic components, so I would rule it still counts.)

"How interesting" Locky thinks to herself, seeing she is trapped she removes a dagger from a pouch and starts to cut the strands if she can.

"Babuskha!" Jerrard shouts, looking down the hole, can he see the spider? If he can he will let loose his magic missiles.

Imani pulls out her bow and runs back down the stairs to fire at the spider creature.