“Wait,” Regdar said. He took hold of one of Naull’s shoulder straps, his hand closing tightly over an empty pouch. She looked up at him and smiled weakly. “All right,” he said.
Naull reached out and grabbed one rung of the ladder.
“It’s sticky,” she said, looking at Lidda.
The halfling shrugged and said, “I’m not sure what it’s made out of, but it’s not too much stickier than mead spilled on a table. You’ll be able to let go.”
Regdar examined the rope closely and was confounded by it. It wasn’t braided like normal rope. It almost looked like each line, as big around as Regdar’s thumb, was made from a single solid strand of something more like silk than any plant fiber. The two sides of the ladder were spaced close together—so close Regdar wasn’t sure he’d be able to get even one of his heavy boots onto a rung, let alone both. The steps of the ladder were spaced closer together than they needed to be, and to Regdar the thing looked like a child’s toy.
Naull set one foot on a ladder rung and glanced up at Regdar. He smiled, holding her tightly, and she stepped away from the wall. The ladder only swung a little bit, and Regdar was able to not only hold onto Naull but steady her on the ladder as well. The young woman cursed under her breath and closed her eyes, waiting for the ladder to stop swaying. Regdar kept his hand tight around the pouch but gradually let her weight fall on the ladder.
“It’s holding her,” Lidda said.
Regdar let all of Naull’s weight fall on the ladder, and after a few moments while the others stared at him expectantly, he let go of Naull’s pouch. When his hand came away, Naull sighed and opened her eyes.
“I think it’s all right,” she said. “It’s sticky, but it’s holding me.”
Jozan, who was a little bit farther down the wall than Naull, took hold of the ladder. It swayed a little and he said, “Hold on.”
Naull held her breath while the priest climbed onto the ladder. Regdar held his hand half an inch from Naull’s shoulder, ready to grab her should the ladder give way. The lines swayed a bit more but held fast.
“I think this is spider silk,” Jozan said.
Naull let out a hissing breath and said, “Don’t say that. Even if it’s true.”
Jozan started climbing down.
Regdar and Lidda exchanged a look as Naull started to slowly follow the priest down the spidersilk ladder.
“I’d rather stick to the wall,” Lidda said with a wink.
“It was left to burn itself out,” Lidda said, crouching next to a blackened fire pit at the bottom of the shaft. “It’s been cold for days… maybe weeks.”
Regdar nodded and looked over at Jozan, who was just stepping off the spidersilk ladder onto the sloping cave floor at the bottom of the shaft. Naull was following him, descending faster, having grown more comfortable with the ladder. The fighter turned his attention to the floor of the dark cave, lit by Lidda’s lantern.
Scattered all about were bits of refuse, most of which Regdar couldn’t immediately identify. He reached down and picked up a set of crude tongs. The tool was as long as his arm and fashioned from some sort of hooklike… somethings… tied with spidersilk to the end of two thick sticks. The hooks almost looked like bones but felt more like fingernails.
Jozan moved up next to him and said, “I think they’re called ‘pedipalps’.”
Regdar turned and gave him a confused look.
“Spider teeth,” the priest explained with a wink.
Regdar set the tool down carefully on the cave floor, half tempted to compare the sharp hooks with the wound in his leg—but the wound was gone.
Naull stepped off the ladder and began wiping her hands on her cloak with a disgusted sneer.
“Well,” Lidda said, standing, her hands on her narrow hips, “the gang’s all here. What now, Daddy?”
Jozan raised an eyebrow and said, “Now, my child, we…”
The priest was obviously annoyed at not being properly addressed, but more than that Regdar realized Jozan wasn’t sure what they should do next.
“What kind of bowl is this?” Naull asked from the shadows near the cave wall, her voice echoing in barely audible pings all around them.
She was holding a wide, shallow bowl of some beige material that might have been porcelain. When she turned it over and saw the brown X emblazoned across it, she shrieked, stepped back, and flung the thing away from her. The spider carapace clattered along the floor, bouncing but not breaking.
The sound echoed all around and almost masked Jozan’s quiet voice. “They use them to make tools,” the priest said.
“What?” Naull asked.
“The spiders,” Lidda answered for him. “Whoever lives down here kills the spiders, maybe eats them, then uses the shells to make tools. Kobolds?”
Regdar took in the scene: fire, crude tools with only rudimentary craftsmanship, no sign of metal. The cave was obviously home to some primitive race, and by the size of the ladder and the shadows that had attacked them from the darkness the night before, they were one of the smaller humanoid races. The ground under a human’s feet was home to any number of dangerous primitives. The fact that most of them were afraid of light kept them safely underground where they belonged, but some of them came out, and when they did, it usually meant war. Regdar had battled orcs himself, and gnolls once.
“Kobolds? Maybe,” Regdar said. “Could be goblins. Lots of different—”
Lidda stepped forward and shushed him, holding up one tiny, thin-fingered hand. She was looking down the slope of the passage, where the cave emptied into another shaft that they hadn’t yet had a chance to examine. Regdar drew his greatsword, and the scream of steel-on-steel as it came out of his scabbard echoed loudly in the confines of the cave.
Lidda lurched at him, eyes wide, teeth clenched together, one finger in front of her scowling lips, shushing him again, silently.
Regdar blushed but didn’t say anything. He listened but could hear nothing.
When a crude javelin spanked off the cave floor a inch from Lidda’s left foot, the halfling launched herself into the air.
Regdar reached, quickly, sliding the shield off his back and into his left hand with a single lightning-fast, fluid motion. He saw a pair of eyes glowing in the darkness and lifted one foot to step forward —and Lidda smashed onto his shield. Momentarily off-balance from the weight of the halfling who, Regdar was dumbfounded to realize, was clinging to his shield with both hands, he stumbled and almost fell. Lidda’s legs were tucked up to her chin, her knees and shins pressed hard against the shield.
Another javelin whizzed past Regdar’s head. He couldn’t turn to watch its path but heard Naull curse loudly. There was a clattering of rocks and scrambling footsteps both behind him and in the shadows ahead. Something leaped from the shadows and Regdar brought his shield up to meet the attack before he realized that Lidda was still hanging there. The creature drew up short, though, hefting another of the primitive javelins—pointed sticks really—for a shorter, easier throw.
Regdar could see in the little humanoid’s eyes that it meant to throw the javelin at Lidda, so he stepped toward the attack and threw the shield—and the halfling along with it—off to his left. He saw Lidda’s legs and arms spiral past the edge of his peripheral vision and stepped in at the little savage with deadly purpose.
The javelin skipped off the clean edge of Regdar’s left pauldron, nearly slicing his stern chin as it passed. He heard Lidda—or was it Naull?—scream in anger, and Jozan was practically shouting what must have been a prayer to Pelor. In that same instant, Regdar sliced up with his greatsword, the tip of the blade tracing an arc from Regdar’s left ankle to well above his head and almost straight out to his right. In the middle, the heavy blade passed cleanly through the little humanoid’s midsection, cutting it open and spilling its guts on the cave floor.