Phenomenon 4 - "Spiderposting"

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Welcome, watcher.

Greetings, brother.

I am well aware of the difficulty of your clandestine operations, especially within an institution as vulgar and disorderly as that bothersome M.E.G. Know that your efforts are not in vain, and that your report has reached our ears.

I bear grave news: The rumours are true. Giorgion Arachne lives.

[+] Open Report

[-] Close Report

Giorgion Arachne

CONCORD ENTITY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM

ENTITY ID: Giorgion Arachne
HABITAT(S): Ground 8

Sin:
XXHighX

CLASS:

Chimeric

PROPERTIES:

HVM

VRL-A

VRL-B

NCR

MCH

CBR

SYN

DMN

SSV

CVL

RLA

UNQ

AGR

BNV

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{$custom2-tag-name}

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RAD

NRO

TXC

PYR

Our Expedition

Due to your covert duties, you are perhaps unaware of the resurgence of the Dark Cults in recent days. In the depths of the shadows, the Cult of the Veiled and their allies have begun to amass their strength once again.

In light of such developments, His Divine Justice, Argos Himself, was troubled deeply by your report. Following your former correspondence, He commissioned our contingent to revisit the catacomb where Giorgion Arachne lay, where He struck the foul creature down long ago, that we might be assured of his death.

We ourselves know His account of the Great War past, how He alone stood firm as our forces were overwhelmed, against the dark forces of Invictus the Terrible — cursed be his sinful name! — and how at last, wounded yet unyielding, He struck down Giorgion Arachne, that repulsive, gargantuan, spider-formed monstrosity, and forced the hordes of the Veiled to flee in fear.

It was therefore with great confidence and in high spirits that we set out for Ground 8. We were confident in His Justice's Might, that the beast surely lay dead. Upon arrival at the catacomb, desecrated and sin-stained as it were, we expected to find naught but a corpse — bones at best, the filthy remains rotting in the aeons since His Justice's triumph over the Darkness.

We were wrong.

The Catacomb

The dark, narrow mouth of the creature's lair. It was infested with cobwebs, which appeared fresh upon inspection.

The creature's tomb was not empty. Upon our arrival at the mouth of the cavern, we were engaged immediately by a band of reprobate fanatics who were of the Cult. With them they brought spiders of unnatural size, enhanced by forbidden arcane powers, being on average half an arm in length. These we dispatched with utmost difficulty, before entering that cursed cavern.

The profane tomb began with a narrow tunnel, which quickly opened up into a chamber of mammoth proportions. Across this vast space, from wall to wall and ceiling to floor, were draped thick, repulsive spider-webs, like pillars. The size, thickness, and density of the webs increased towards the cavern's center, where they were plastered together like some preternatural, unholy forest of sin. These abhorrent webs were, at their largest, thicker in girth than a human thigh. The sticky filth clung to anything it touched; it gave off a putrid stench of rotting decay that intensified as we approached.

Upon the ground, the walls, and the cobwebs of that wretched place crept arachnid forms of all manner. Ticks, mites, scorpions, and — above all — spiders, of all shapes and sizes, crowded every inch of every surface, laying eggs and hatching from eggs, and furthermore, crawling over, mating with, quarrelling with, and devouring one another. Thankfully, being unaccustomed to the light incandescing from our armor, they recoiled at our footsteps, and withdrew upon our approach. As they retreated, we glimpsed upon the exposed rock arcane glyphs, no doubt etched by the Veiled in their quest to revere and empower the monstrosity we presumed dead. Not all these glyphs were ancient; some appeared freshly carved. Filled with an uneasy certainty of our location, we forged onward.

It was then, as we found ourselves in the center of that cavern, with horrific and unholy glyphs of all manner inscribed upon its walls, crawling and writhing with spiders, that our worst fears were realized.

The Creature

Giorgion Arachne lives.

As we peered upward into the cluster of webs tangled in the center of the room, we found, to our horror, a colossal silhouette moving within the shadows above. We observed it grasping handfuls of squirming arachnids from its webs, lifting them greedily to its human head and emptying them into its mouth. Simultaneously, we observed excretions from its bowels: not only webbing, but also, on occasion, large, spherical clusters of eggs. Some of these eggs, within mere moments of being laid, hatched, and dispersed toward the walls of the cavern, where they began to lay smaller eggs of their own. So we learned that the arachnid hordes which surrounded us were the creature's children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and so forth — which it also ate, for sustenance or for glee. Indeed, such a vile and senseless ecosystem could by no means sustain itself but by the energies of the greatest of Sin Curses.

To his misfortune and ours, watcher Seamus made an errant step, and quickly found himself entangled in the webs that surrounded us. Emboldened, the innumerable spider-children approached and swarmed upon his armor; we could not save him as he was engulfed and devoured by the creature's appalling spider-children, which innumerably and disgustingly swarmed the walls and crawled into his armour. I cannot forget his desperate cries. But it was this which finally drew the foul beast's attention, and it fell from its web to the cavern floor to meet us.

Its likeness is as terrible as His Justice foretold. I shall endeavour to describe it to you, though a sufficient depiction of its horrific appearance escapes me.

The beast Giorgion Arachne was indeed chimeric in form. Yet whatever may have once been human had been perverted and distorted by sin beyond repair. The creature's human half hung, bedraggled and feral, above its monstrous lower body. Its face was covered in thick, black hair which fell to its shoulders — in the darkness, I could make out no more of its features. Its torso, mutilated as it were, was lean and muscled, and covered in arcane glyphs.

The beast's carapace was like concrete, and its spider-legs were sturdier than steel. Our blades, arrows, and Retributors profited nothing against its impenetrable skin. Its speed was frightening, its hideous form scuttling and leaping across the cavern walls with lightning agility, and our shots and blows scarcely even connected with its detestable flesh. Altogether, in height it stood five times the height of a man, and it carried tenfold a man's strength. Watcher Virgil ran valiantly at the horrible creature with his spear; it grabbed him by the helm with its arms and tore his head clean off.

By this horrific evil we were almost instantly overwhelmed and forced to retreat. Moreover, reinforcements from the Veiled arrived as we were fleeing, though they did not give chase; their attentions seemed fixed instead upon the welfare of the beast and its kin within the tomb. By the creature's hand alone we lost six watchers, among our most elite Inquisitors: Seamus, Virgil, Riccardi, Alonso, Fernandez, and also Marshal Valentin. We could not even retrieve their bodies. I fear for the fate of their remains, lost to the horrific machinations of the Veiled and their abominable magicks.

Directions

We write to you now the very command of His Justice Argos.

Fear not: though the circumstances are dire, His Justice deems that the M.E.G.'s assistance is not necessary to deal with the Veiled or with Giorgion Arachne. After their wretched incursion upon our Sacred Headquarters, we may not trust them as allies for the time-being. There is no need for you to reveal your true identity, at least, for now.

Under oath, His Justice commmands that you persist in your pretense of employment within the M.E.G., in order to purge the knowledge of Giorgion Arachne from within their database. Continue to aid your fellow archivists in dealing with their "Spiderposting" plague, and encourage their thinking that the occurrences are meaningless and foolish. Ensure no one around you takes the senseless ravings of these documents with any seriousness — make sure of this by any means necessary. Do not hesitate to dispose of any person who may begin to suspect otherwise. You know the inclination of these blundering fools to poke their noses into business not their own, and we cannot risk their meddling with His Justice's enlightened plans.

Stay vigilant, brother. The darkness grows stronger as I write. My own life is at stake; the enemy follows us at every turn. Even now, our watchers have seen their members lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike. I fear an altercation may erupt before the end of this day.

May Argos' vision guide you.

- Marshal Enceladus, of the Inquisitors of Truth

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page revision: 13, last edited: 19 Feb 2025 19:01

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The Backrooms

You've been here before.

Giorgion Arachne

Our Expedition

The Catacomb

The Creature

Directions