The tropical southern coast of Great Tendor has announced a task force helmed by peldaks and hemlocks. The goal is to track down and slay the so-called ‘titan spiders’ which have reportedly been stalking the rainforests. Supposedly the outlying villages within have suffered a combined 32 deaths the past year, but despite desperate pleas to the provincial government for aid, the bureaucrats and administrators dismissed them as fairytales.

How they’re able to accept that some elves are older than their entire civilization yet dismiss a somewhat large spider as impossible is beyond me. Perhaps they were just lazy.

Regardless, a Hemlock Guardian passing through on a security mission overheard talk of monster spiders and relayed this to the proper Protectorate authorities.

The task force brought together a hunting team of 30 peldaks, 50 hemlock, and over 300 tendori soldiers, along with a dozen guides from the local villages.

They scoured the rainforest as a single party, and it took only three days to find a nest of giants.

The size of a large dog, each leg the length of a hemlock’s long arm, viciously territorial and highly proficient ambush hunters. Compared to their size, a normal spider is extremely strong, so a human sized spider has strength rivaling an elf, with reaction times and speeds equal to a hemlock.

Naturally, this isn’t possible with simple biology. They’re enhanced through druidic magic. We don’t know if these hunters were released intentionally by the Spider Coven, or if perhaps it was an accidental release.

The hunters killed over 30 titan spiders before pulling back.

A pregnant one was split in half and a hundred babies, each the size of a fist, burst forth and fled. That’s a terrifying number of offspring, and the 18^th Legion is being called to crush the infestation.