Two days after their adventure with the goblins the four companions found themselves back in front of the task board, looking disappointedly at the jobs on offer.
"Och, there's nothing here that's even remotely interesting," complained Aggy, "it's all either wood stacking, delivery jobs, or killing rats. I know we're only level one but this is ridiculous."
"How about this one," Terri suggested. "A farmer to the north has had sheep repeatedly go missing, at least we'd be going after a wolf or something."
"Even a dire wolf or a rabid warg would be no match for me," Thisss declared with his trademark certainty. "Unfortunately I can see no other tasks that are even worth considering, so I suggest we help the farmer find his missing sheep."
Flem removed the task notice from the board and slipped it into one of his many pockets. "According to the notice we have an hour's walk ahead of us so we may as well get going. If we're lucky we might even get back in time for lunch."
When they arrived at Devon's Farm an hour later they found out that getting back to Gravenhall for lunch had never been an option. After recovering from the shock of meeting a dwarf and a giant lizardman, Farmer Devon informed them that the sheep only went missing at night, so they would need to stay until at least the next day and probably longer. He'd begun herding his sheep into the barn at the end of the day in an effort to keep them safe, but even that had failed to stop the disappearances. When Aggy asked if the farmer had tried sleeping in the barn with the sheep to protect them he was incredulous.
"Oh no. There's no way I'm going to go sleeping in the barn with some mysterious spook on the loose, I'd rather lose all my sheep than lose my soul."
"What makes you think it's something supernatural?" Terri asked curiously. "We thought it was probably just a wolf or some other wild animal."
"I wouldn't have contacted Gravenhall and got the four of you out here if I thought it was just a wolf!" Farmer Devon replied indignantly. "The barn doors and windows have been barred shut every night and I've still been losing sheep. The only doors that can't be barred are up in the hay loft and if there's a wolf that's able to climb fifteen feet straight up the side of a barn to get inside then I don't want to meet it."
There were still at least nine hours to go before nightfall so the companions took a leisurely approach to getting prepared. There was a small pen in the corner of the barn that the farmer used for isolating sick animals, and the companions used this space to set up for the night. They positioned the blankets Farmer Devon had loaned them so they could easily keep an eye on the large doors of the hay loft, and then drew lots to see who would take first watch. After that there wasn't much to do but wait so Aggy pulled a deck of cards out of her voluminous backpack and began to teach Flem and Terri how to play the dwarven card game called 'Krom's Triangle'. Thisss stalked off to search for scents, tasting the air and sometimes the barn itself with his long blue tongue.
After a while he returned to the others and reported his findings. "There is a scent here that I have never encountered before, I taste the sheep, the farmer, some dogs, yourselves, and something else, something new."
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"So what do you think it is?" Terri asked.
"I cannot say, but I suspect we are going to be in for a very interesting night indeed. If luck favours us then by the morning we will all be feasting on the flesh of something none of us have ever tasted before." With that he left the barn and did not return until night had fallen.
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Aggy had been grumbling about 'unreliable lizards' for just over an hour when Thisss finally opened the door and came back into the barn.
"At last," Aggy grouched, "we've been expecting you to be back for hours. I was starting to think you'd gotten bored and walked back into town."
"Your thought was incorrect," Thisss replied. "I have been trying to track the creature back to its lair but without success. I followed it across the fields with ease but I was unable to track it any further than the forest that stands on the borders of the farm."
Aggy was interested enough to ask a question rather than make a snarky comment about the lizardman's failure. "Why was that? You tracked the goblins through the forest fairly easily, didn't you?"
"Yes I did,' Thisss answered, "but this creature is different, this creature climbs trees."
The companions spent the next few hours speculating on what kind of animal could carry a grown sheep through the treetops of a forest, but were unable to come to any serious conclusions. Eventually tiredness overcame their curiosity and they settled down for the night. Terri had drawn the first watch and sat with her back against the barn wall so that she could comfortably keep an eye on the hay loft. Aggy and Flem were sleeping on either side of her and Thisss curled up like an enormous labrador at her feet. Time slowly dragged on with nothing to be heard but the night noises of the sheep and Aggy's gentle snoring.
It was after midnight when it happened, almost imperceptibly at first but slowly and surely, the hayloft door was opening. It was done so carefully that initially Terri doubted what she saw, thinking that her sleep deprived mind was playing tricks on her. There was no sound, no squeak of rusty hinges or groan of wood on wood. Only the slowly appearing stars of the night sky confirmed that the door was moving at all. Nonetheless, the sight of those stars was more than enough to start Terri's heart pounding and spur the young cleric into action.
Leaning left and right Terri gently shook Aggy and Flem into wakefulness and then carefully nudged Thisss with her foot. The giant lizardman came awake with a snort that echoed throughout the barn. All eyes turned to the hayloft door which stopped moving and remained stationary for many minutes before slowly starting to open again. While the companions watched the door's slow progress they silently eased themselves to their feet, weapons in hand.
The door was perhaps three quarters of the way open when its movement stopped and a massive shape climbed in through the open space. It was hard to tell in the meagre light but it seemed to be about the size of a large horse. Once inside, the huge shape climbed up the inside of the barn wall before making its way towards them, upside down, along the roof.
The creature had travelled half the length of the barn when Aggy whispered urgently, "Now Terri, give us some light." The black shape stopped instantly but did not turn tail and run, even when Terri lit up her amulet and slowly filled the barn with light.
"Och no, we should've stayed home and stacked firewood." Aggy's plaintive statement summed up Terri and Flem's thoughts exactly. High above them, hanging upside down from the barn roof was a truly gigantic spider. Jet black, its eight hairy legs were attached to an armoured thorax, just in front of a bulbous, shiny, black abdomen. Its many glittering eyes showed no sign of fear, just curiosity......and malice.