Spider Lair by Medizinmann

Some weeks ago, Medizinmann invited me to have a look at his house at 8 Faction Fusion Flats.

Medizinmann: Ready to give you a scare :p

What...? What did he mean by give me a scare? Should I pretend to be unwell and just run away?

Pfff... Of course I wasn't going to be a chicken and just flee. I was an elf for goodness's sake! I could take anything! (And hopefully Medizinmann was just playing with me!)

Inside the cave

We entered an ominous cave, and suddenly darkness surrounded us...

I should have left when I had the opportunity...

While my eyes were still adapting to the lack of light, we heard some unrecognizable words... After a brief search, we found an explorer climbing out of a hole full of cobwebs. We went to help him, and when asked what had happened, we only heard gibberish. Whatever he had seen in that hole had made him lose his mind...

I could have left. I knew where the exit was! But my hope was short-lived. Out of nowhere, Medizinmann jumped into the hole and left me behind.

Goddess dammit! Why had he done that? The idea of leaving him behind crossed my mind, but yeah... in the end, I went after him.

The Lair

After a long fall, I arrived at the bottom of the hole, covered in cobwebs. And if I am being totally honest, I even ate some on my way down. I shouldn't have screamed so much!

We found some dead bodies nearby. Since one of them was still losing blood like he had a self-pouring bottle of wine inside of him, we understood that danger was close...

I never asked what Medizinmann had done to go unnoticed, but I used Shadowmeld and went ahead.

This place was home to a huge and terrifying spider that seemed to be storing food for herself, all her babies, and a few larger spiders.

At what level was she? To answer my question, we saw her come down some pillars and instantly kill an explorer who was underneath her... Yeap! I was going to avoid her like the plague!

Very quietly, we backed away and explored the edges of the cave...

What? Since we were here, we might as well look for some loot!

We found tiny spiders everywhere. Some were feeding on corpses, while others were creating cocoons around their victims. Extra food for later.

At this point, we were behind the spider mother. From this angle, we could see many egg sacs on the brood mother's abdomen. The view was somewhat disgusting as they were about to hatch. We needed to leave fast.

We saw more bodies piled up against the wall and, as we were heading to the entrance, a larger spider showed up.

It had noticed us entering!

But how?

It seemed that I still wasn't good enough at concealing myself while moving around. Shadowmeld only works while you're standing still... *face palm*

Behind us, we saw another one running along the wall, ready to pounce.

Medizinmann: Let's venture a little higher

Kiiramat: We are doomed

Medizinmann: For sure

We went up the ramp to escape the spiders and, after a very long run, we arrived at the top.

There we found more spider food and another spider piercing an explorer's leg...

We were cornered!

This is where I could tell you that we went into this cave fully prepared and came out victorious. But no... After a short fight, we paid a visit to the spirit healers and had a nice walk back into our bodies.

In the end, we left the cave empty-handed, and I became slightly more scared of spiders. I just hoped I wouldn't have nightmares about this place from now on...

Chat with Medizinmann

Medizinmann created this cave because he decided to enter a challenge created by Player Housing EU.

As inspiration for the build, Spooky and/or Horror themes were to be used, and only 20 room placement points could be utilized.

Medizinmann: So, as part of this contest, I had to come up with a topic...

Medizinmann: As a grown man, I'm not easily scared. So I thought about what used to scare me as a child

Medizinmann: The first time I was really scared while watching a movie was during the scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King where the giant spider in the ravine tries to eat Frodo

Medizinmann: And that was the inspiration for this

(...)

Medizinmann: Everything else is improvised

Medizinmann's spooky build got him a well-deserved 2nd place. Congratulations.

To conclude

It's very satisfying to explore players' builds. But what I really enjoy is getting to know the creator a little better and hearing them explain their creation. Without their insight, I would miss many things, or I would be doing a lot of guesswork.

Hope you enjoyed coming with me on this adventure.

See you on the next one.