Our story opened with an explanation of the last memories of each of the characters prior to the game. Albinus was knocked unconscious by his erstwhile rescuers, Jim last remembers being branded aboard the HMS Valiant, The Bull was shanghaied upon attempting to patronize a woman of questionable virtue, and Azaka was poisoned by an apothecary he was supposed to purchase from. 

Now they all found themselves painfully waking up in barred iron cages 6” deep in bilge sludge aboard a ship made of some sinister dark wood. Introductions barely got under way before Jim started to use his blade to assault the sizable lock keeping his door barred. The noise soon attracted one of their captors, a rough looking shirtless man with his fists wrapped in ship-chain, whom Edward had caught a glimpse of as he was slipping into unconsciousness.

AZAKA: “Why am I here? Who are you?”
‘CHAINS’: “Why do you want to know?”
AZAKA’S PLAYER: “I’m completely stunned by that I have no way to respond…”
‘CHAINS’: “Cap’nnnn! The prisoners is awake!”
AZAKA’S PLAYER: “Is there anything in the muck at the bottom of my cell?”
GM: “Not really… Hmm… Nothing more than a bloated rat corpse.”
AZAKA’S PLAYER: “Great!”
GM: (After stunned silence) “Players… yeesh you give them an inch…”
AZAKA’S PLAYER: “I wedge the door shut with the rat corpse and begin asking the Loa for the power to open the locks.”

The captain turned out to be a tall, nearly skeletal, man with a quiet but threatening voice, who seemed to know all too much about the characters and their abilities.

CAPTAIN: (Turning to leave)“Don’t worry Jim, we’ll find a way to keep that sword from you yet…”
AZAKA: “Why am I here? Who are you?”
CAPTAIN: (Over his shoulder) “You are a threat to the interests that back me…”
Three of the crewmen were detailed to keep the prisoners in line with cutlass and flintlock.
JIM: (Raising his sword) “Ya seem awfully hesitant to step down into this muck… how are ya goin’ to stop me getting out”
CREWMAN: (Cocking a flintlock) “Oh ah’ll come down there if’n ya make me boy, but Cap’n Morgan didn’ say you were needed alive.”

Interested in this scrap of information Jim and the Bull extract from the crewmen the fact that their captain is in fact the notorious and notoriously dead Captain Henry Morgan, former governor of Jamaica. Right around when the crewmen get wise and cease their conversation Azaka successfully petitions the Loa for the ability to open the rest of the cells.

All hell breaks loose.

From above deck the sounds of cannon and combat resound and the ship begins a horrid lurching. Jim’s blade finds a home in one of the seamen’s chest but not before his hat has been shot off by the flintlock wielding leader, and the Bull downs another with a slap from his belt and an elbow to the neck. Albinus wends his way through the fray to above decks despite the bucking of the ship and proceeds to remove his blindfold. The ship then completely transforms, for a split second Albinus sees it as a great sea creature with one eye torn away by cannon fire before plummeting into the sea and losing consciousness. Trapped in the belly of the beast the rest of the characters are knocked unconscious as well.

…

The characters awake injured, surrounded by corpses and flotsam, on the beach of a tropical island topped with an oddly whitish jungle. Azaka retrieves his crystal and the Bull finds some charts in the captain’s cabin before they set off along the beach. They soon find that the beach becomes a sharp bluff in both directions and discover the reason for the jungle’s color, it is covered roots to canopy with the webs of more spiders than our sailors can count. On their way around they discover that the corpses they awoke amongst have disappeared, and along the coast they see the ruins of a Spanish galleon. The galleon is ransacked revealing a trunk of un-minted silver, and the cliff is climbed revealing an ancient stone structure deep within the spider infested jungle.

Albinus is suddenly struck by the presence of suffering from the island’s interior. Torches are gathered up and the characters began burning their way into to jungle. It is not long before they meet a party of natives carrying a palanquin with a wizened shaman riding it. Blades are drawn and a fight looks likely until Albinus apologizes psychically to the shaman for burning their sacred spiders. Impressed by the blind boy’s power the two parties reach a truce, Edward will return to their wreck for their sacred _meta_l (the silver) but they are not to signal any ships or their lives will be forfeit.

The Bull allows the shaman to protect him from the ‘sacred spiders’ by ingesting a toxic brew from his staff and marking the Bull’s face. This horrifying ritual is apparently what Albinus had sensed earlier, but apparently it works as he is able to return to the galleon unmolested. His return is just in time to welcome a survivor of the galleon’s wreck, a Spanish priest, apparently mute. Through gesture and glance the priest figures out that the Bull and his companions were prisoners rather than pirates, and agrees to signal a ship should he see one. He then blesses Edward out loud in Latin, and the Bull figures out that the priest has taken a vow of silence.
Back at the village the characters attempt to mingle as best they can, grateful at least for the food. Even if it is spider stew. A night and a day pass as each of them finds their place within the village, and no signal comes from the priest at the shore. There are various antics as they integrate themselves and they see one of the boys of the tribe picked by a woman for marriage after each of them was finally successful in their respective spider hunts.

EDWARD’S PLAYER: I’ll see what spiders the others are catching and stab me a big one. I’ve got a match on my Fencing, but nothing for my Merchant.
GM: You quickly take down what appears to be a fine specimen, the young women look jealous, the young boys giggle, and the older warriors openly chuckle.
ALBINUS: (Telepathically and in ‘English’) “Why do they laugh at my warrior?”
SHAMAN: (Telepathically and in Nahuatl) “He has caught a fine spider, it will make an perfect gift for his husband on their wedding night… It will increase his fertility manifold” (laughs wryly).

Jim left the rest of the party sleeping to investigate the large stone temple. Descending into it he found a mural of the creation myth of the spider people. Seeing the Spanish conquerors attack their ancestors who were worshippers of 4 animal gods Jaguar, Serpent, Hawk and Spider. He also saw a great schism caused by a Spanish looking man holding a single branch, and the deluge that separated the Spider People. At the base of the long staircase Jim came upon an altar over a deep pit. Amidst the stains of blood sacrifice he saw a ring of obsidian and turquoise, but did not take it. He also attempted to determine the depth of the pit below the altar, by dropping a button, and found it to be very deep and the floor of it covered in a hollow material that was not stone.

The session closed as Jim related his findings to the rest of the group.