02:45 am on Luck Day, week 4 of the Bear’s Starfall. 990

A gentle murmuring of voices flowed between two campfires lit on a paved area North West of Mystery Glade. “There are not enough of us,” said one voice, tense, expectant. “More will come,” said another, his voice betraying more hope than confidence. In the north, the sky reddened slightly, as the sun yawned. I kept to the shadows. They had enough to think about without being pestered by a reporter.

Just a short walk from this huddled group laid the object of this meet. Within a slabbed entrance to a mine, legs writhed and squirmed, their owners trapped for the moment by a flimsy wooden gate. For months the spiders have been breeding here. Spider upon spider, piled high, bathing in their own foul stench, waiting for liberation, for the chance to battle their captors.

And battle they will, for as the sun rises, the band of hunters, now swollen in ranks, heave a mighty catapult into position to batter down the wooden gate and free their adversaries.

Solver has organised this Battle Royal. Roxana has had a Spider's Lair fenced in for months and has created a “Spider Shoot,” a two tile wide run starting at the mine and ending some 50 tiles later at a tower. With memories of another spider hunt some months ago, around 17 hunters will gather and face the run as the spiders swarm towards them.

"The sun already stood high in the wurm sky when I woke up and took a look over the area," Solver told me later. "Some of the fellow hunters where already up and preparing for the hunt. So I joined them on the shore and prepared a few more rags and strings. The talk around the campfire was in the line of tactics and how to keep track of the supplies. The time is now getting near and the figters are lining up."

I climbed a nearby tree, this writer is not of the metal to face such onslaught, to cover the reckless deeds as they unfolded before me. Fires flickered around the spider shoot, yellow shadows that danced across the faces of those that stood there; hearts pumping, sweat glistening on each and every brow.

The catapult was loaded and drawn. Fire! One hit. And another, and again.

“Ready!” Each hunter voiced his or her assent as the catapult was loaded a final time.

In slow motion, the projectile flew from the arm, and sailed through the air. Eyes followed its progress, breaths held, my camera clicking furiously, and then a moments silence as it crashed amidst the foul swarm and smashed the last few planks of the gate.

Spiders flew from the mine; the small ones first, the giants hard on their tails. Many, in the anguish panicked and trapped themselves on the fence at the bottom of the run. But the wiser ones, they knew the score, they smelled the sweat of Wurmians. Turned they did and flew at the hunters with a haunted rage.

Swords flashed in the stormy dawn. Lightning crashed in the heavens above. The slaughter had begun.

How many hundreds lay in that mine waiting for this moment? For the hunters it is wave after wave. For me, it is running from tree to tree, trying to capture each moment, each attack. As the hunters fought and regrouped, fought and regrouped. I checked at the mine. And still the spiders came. This seemed impossible, did Solver and his hunters realise what awaited them here? Had he really assessed the mountainous scale of this task.

The night before I had spoken to Elias The Crimson. He and two compatriots sailed down from Silent Hill for this meet. He was apprehensive of what would face him, but with the fog closing in around him he had the greater concern not to hit rock. Not the Raven, his vessel, there would be no flying to save him if he steered his small boat astray. But his instincts were good, and he contacted me when he arrived at the quay and inspected the mine. He was more than a little shaken. “Seeing them there makes me feel squeamish,” he said with distaste.

On the day of the hunt, being squeamish would be the last thing on his mind – surviving was the sole name of this game!

Tactics were simple. No hunter, however well armoured, how ever well skilled could survive a mass onslaught. They must break the pack and drag them up the run, batch by batch, fight them and rest. At each pause, rags and healing covers are brought forth and liberally applied. The organisers have supplied copious amounts in small barrels as well as food and water so the hunters can travel and fight light.

1 day and 1 night later.

The fight continues. The giants, the champions are now gone, but the infantry, the hundreds are still coming, and still the hunters are there. Tired, quiet. Adrenaline pumping excitement has been replaced with unshakable doggedness. Halfway? More than Halfway? Who can tell? From my vantage in a tall pine, I can see what the hunters on the ground cannot; the still vast, squirming mass of legs and bodies.

On the run the spiders are more spread now; some up as far as the Guard Tower, where the guards are earning their daily bread with lethal efficiency. Each hunter is taking on a small group and then retreating behind gates set in the fence for that purpose. Back down at the mine, the horde still gather.

19.11 Day of the Wurm

The last few hardened spiders remain, and the hunters, dwindled now in numbers, fight to their last breath.

00:50 Wrath Day

It is done – the victors are of the two legged variety: Solver, Roxana, Mikelpolak, Spasticsquirrel, Einnel, Mech, Dawkapl, Elias The Crimson, Froggeryz, Khalid, Madboy, Nilzir, RMT, Tottman, Metal Dragon, Xallo, Botchess. And of those, these did not survive: Solver, RMT, Mikelpolak, Metal Dragon.

The last spider is taken down, the mine cleared of any last foul beasts and those that remain gathered in front of the now empty mine entrance. The victorious of Wurm.

And yet, as the last few made their way to the boats, as the last remaining corpses were buried so not to attract more unwelcome visitors, I wandered down to the mine entrance to stand between the reddened statues that guard this forbidding entrance to an underworld. And in the silence I thought I heard the spider's lair take a long slow breath….

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