"Maybe if we go wreck the shiver lab in the basement this will be over by the time we come back?" Emi asks without much hope it's true.
NHYBUR ESTATE (Garrison Hill; Desnus 6)
Firinne scales the spiral staircase with ease; Kayleigh clomps up behind the nimble tiefling. Indeed, the weird web baffles Firinne, though her guesses seem plausible at the very least. Kayleigh wonders aloud if perhaps closing the book will eliminate the glowing blue web.
It's not clear who or what triggers the trap: Maybe one of the spellcasters concentrates more on maintaining a detect magic spell than on her surroundings and the low-hanging magical web effect; maybe Nebbin's general largeness comes into play and he unwittingly brushes a strand; or perhaps something else in the cupola (A bat? More likely a crawling or dangling spider!) makes contact with the blue lightning web.
In any event, a trap is triggered, though perhaps not in the way one might expect. The glowing blue net/web doesn't suddenly drop on all gathered beneath it. Instead, some of the strands begin to split and move, gathering quickly in the center of the web. Firinne and Kayleigh (for what it's worth) recognize the form the strands take: a magical symbol. The exact type of symbol--which Firinne recognizes--immediately becomes apparent to everyone. Nebbin is the first to be affected, blinking his eyes twice before keeling over. Kayleigh tries to catch her boyfriend but only ends up joining him motionless on the floor. Tassira's eyes droop shut and she slumps to the floor as well; her backpack spills open and Ravnos the cat pops halfway out, deep in a catnap. Emi very nearly succumbs to the symbol of sleep as well, while Firinne fights off the insidious effect with the only slightest of yawns.
Alphabetical Will Saves....
Post a near complete panic as most everyone in the room collapses into sleep is Emi's realization that the dead guy in the room might not be so dead. She keeps her eyes averted from the symbol trap and creeps forward to see if she can find a pulse in him.
Emi finds no pulse on the fellow believed to be Lord Nhybur.
"Oh, hell," Fírinne says, as the nature of the trap dawns on her much too late. Knowing the effort is futile, she still kneels to try and shake her comrades awake before standing and listening for the sound of ambush.
"They're just asleep, for now," she says, turning to put her back to Emi. "We won't be able to wake them until the spell runs its course, however. Half an hour, if we're lucky. Three hours if we're not."
If we were lucky, we wouldn't have set it off at all. she thinks.
Emi isn't satisfied, being wrong would be too costly.
"Can you give me a hand Firinne. I think this man is dead but my nerves are not going to let me wait this out with him just laying here until he maybe gets up. If we can't wake them up with some jostling, let's bind his hands and feet."
Fírinne raises an eyebrow, but voices no objections as she moves to assist Emi with tying up the dead man.
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"Mzzuhgrbrgr..." The comatose Tassira mumbles in agreement with Emi. Or perhaps in confusion. Or perhaps as she addresses someone else in her dreams. It's difficult to tell.
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NHYBUR ESTATE (Garrison Hill; Desnus 6)
As she'd feared, Firinne is unable to shake the sleepers back to wakefulness. She hears no movement in the cupola (other than Emi's quiet movements as the warrior checks Lord Nhybur for a pulse), but suddenly she spies more motion from the glowing blue web: Four strands are dropping from it like there's a fat spider descending on each line (though you see no such arachnid). The strands are wider near the web, growing thinner and diminishing in brightness until they seem to vanish altogether...right before they make contact his the forehead, nose, mouth, or ear of each sleeper.
As Ravnos has a tendril curl into his ear, Tassira's familiar scrabbles a bit in place, as though suffering from a horrible nightmare, perhaps. (If cats do indeed dream of anything other than world domination.) Its paws accidentally dig something small and thin from Tassira's pack...one of the cards from Zellara's old Harrow deck. Emileva recognizes the card immediately: The Trumpet. That was the card she drew from the deck when Madame Carington performed a harrowing for the party fairly recently. Indeed, the young warrior woman can hear the old oneiromancer's words in her head as clearly as the day she spoke Emi's fortune....
The Trumpet! A clarion call that summons power and fearlessness. Are you fearless, young warrior? This card suggests you will be called upon to take up a mantle in some kind or fashion. It suggests you may find your loyalty, if you have not already, and that you may be given a chance to champion that cause.
Suddenly, another voice intrudes. You believe it to be that of the spirit of the dead harrower who first sent you and your friends to confront Gaedren Lamm, Zellara. This is not that moment, yet it may be a precursor...a trial run of sorts. WIll you step forward into danger?
Ravnos kicks and spasms again and a second Harrow card is flung from Tassira's pack. This one lands face-up nearer to Firinne. The card is the Waxworks and depicts a figure bound in chains suspended upside-down over a vat of boiling wax. Even as you lay eyes on the card, its picture begins to change subtly: The chains morph into ropes...No--strands of spider webbing!...that curl around the captive until he's cocooned from neck to toes. The the captive's face starts to change, becoming the sleeping visage of Kayleigh! The cocoon begins to rotate slowly, revealing Nebbin wrapped back-to-back in the same sticky shroud as the cleric. The next revolution, the captive figure's face is Tassira's, and on the last turn it's a human-sized Ravnos.
These four faces rotate on the slowly spinning, upside-down cocoon...but then more changes appear. The contents of the vat of wax seem to drain away, leaving a dark hole behind. As the alteration proceeds, you can see that it's become a web funnel. Dark, spindly spider legs emerge from the hole, reaching for the tender morsel(s) dangling just above it.
Emi notices the strand tuching Ravnos first, the cat's movement catches her eye. She jolts at the sight of it and barks out "f%~%!" almost like a harsh cough. As she looks more broadly and then up, Emi's eyes grow to saucers.
"Firinne..."
Emi trails off because her mind is crowded with unwelcome memories, no time to be thinking about cards, and getting up. Emi sweeps her falchion in a wide arc, a scythe-like swing, hoping she can sever the tendrils.
"What are these Firinne? We need to move them all out of here if we can't wake them!"
Emi notices the tendrils seem only to be coming for sleepers, but her head is also crowded with the invasive memory of that card reading, and bubbling panic.
Emi feels no resistance as her trusty falchion effortlessly severs the light tendrils. The cut connectors wave lazily in the air for a moment before each split end seeks out its partner, reuniting and reestablishing the glowing link between the book and the sleepers. Kayleigh and Nebbin, who'd been sleeping peacefully, now begin to occasionally mutter like Tassira, twisting and grinding their teeth a bit. Their sleep seems to be becoming...troubled. Tassira and Ravnos sleep more restlessly as well.
A breeze passes through the cupola, though no window or vent appears to be open. In addition to making the electric blue web strands slow-dance for a few moments, the gust also lifts the Waxworks harrow card off the floor slightly, repositioning it almost perfectly between Emi and Firinne. An urgent female voice sounds inside each woman's head: If you seek a hunting spider, you will not find it at the bottom of the ocean.
You recognize the voice as Zellara's.
You notice something unusual about the harrow card: In the places where the card's suit (Keys, Shields, Books, Hammers, Stars, or Crowns) is usually shown, there's instead a different symbol--the same symbol of sleeping that still hanging in the center of the brilliant blue web. You feel no magical force when your eyes recognize it; this sigil is just a representation and has no magical power.
It's still mostly guesswork, but the way Emi cut through the tendrils only for each to repair itself, you guess that the web strands are a connection--physical and/or spiritual or mental--between the sleepers and the book (or more precisely, the writings within). Perhaps the hundreds of other web strands don't connect to the cupola walls and ceilings: Maybe they pass through those barriers and connect to creatures outside the manor.
"Not boot, no boots," Nebbin mutters.
"I don't...know," Fírinne says, struggling to make sense of what she's seeing. Her mind races through a dozen different possibilities and countermeasures, discarding each in turn. Her eyes find the book, a connection is made in her mind, and she storms over to the accursed thing to slam the point of her rapier through it.
Firinne stabs the book with her rapier; all that seems to accomplish is to send the blue glow-web swaying lightly again. The sleepers continue to toss, turn, and occasionally groan or mutter.
The woman's voice again enters the heads of Emi and Firinne; it sounds weaker and a bit panicked. You must act! Take the fight into the Spider's dreamscape! It is there that Carington's spirit is trapped; it is there where your three friends might soon be trapped as well! Like a trapdoor spider, the corruptor in the Korvosa dreamscape took your friends and carried off their spirits. But you two survived the ambush, and now you know where the spider's trapdoor is...and that your friends lie just beyond it!
The voice falls silent for several seconds before it passes a few last words on: Though stepping willingly into the spider's parlor is dangerous, you would have an advantage your friends did not have when they were drawn into the dreaming plane: You are aware and go willingly, whereas they were taken unawares. This gives you power. You know that you'll be asleep...and you can use that to your advantage! Sleep heals some wounds. Sleep calms fears and alleviates stress and worries. Sleep allows casters to replenish their spells. And with sleep come dreams, where time is mutable and anything is possible! If you sleep fully expecting to awaken refreshed with a fresh slate of spellcasting power...who has the power to deny this from you?
Emi understands the thrust of what the voice is urging Firinne and her to do. She hasn't the slightest idea HOW to do it though. Frustrated and still on edge she calls out to Firinne and the voice and anyone else for that matter who might have something practical to say about it.
"But how?! How are we supposed to get there?!
Emi also casts about with her eyes for anything that might provide a clue.
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"Was worth a shot..." Fírinne mutters, pulling her weapon free of the now-ruined book. She takes a deep breath to center herself, so she can truly focus on what the voice is telling her.
"The goal is clear enough," she says in answer to Emileva. "We need to fall asleep. We're too worked up to do it on our own, so the only way in is through that." Without looking at it, she gestures in the direction of the symbol of sleep that has ensnared their friends.
"When you look at it, instead of fighting the compulsion, focus on our goal: we need to find our comrades, and before that we need a good night's rest. Keep that at the front of your mind and it will be so when you arrive." Fírinne takes another deep breath, preparing to face the symbol.
"We might not arrive in the same time or place. If we get separated, find the others, and convince them that they are stuck in a dream. Then we can find and kill the son of a b@%$ who's been tormenting you."
Emi might have talked herself out of what Firinne told her to do if she'd had more time. It did sound crazy to her. But if Firinne was right and they couldn't even count on arriving in the same place or even time, Emi needed to do everything she could to make the chances they wouldn't smaller. That meant not stalling to think about what she was about to do. Go as close together in time could only help she reasons.
Emi focuses her thoughts on the things Firinne said to keep at the forefront of her mind and looks directly into the symbol, surrendering to its power.
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DARK DREAMS (The Silent Abyss between Sleeping and Wakefulness)
Sleep claims you, but you keep the Harrower spirit’s words close to your heart. At first, you dream that you and Firinne follow Zellara’s translucent spirit through a space of utter blackness. You do not fear the journey, however; instead you use the period of sleepwalking to heal your lingering wounds from the battles at Nhybur Manor. You’re not sure how much time has passed when your dream begins to change. Softly glowing fog rolls though the darkness, and it becomes harder to keep track of Firinne, who seems to be lagging behind. Suddenly, you realize the wispy stuff floating around you is not fog—it’s strands and small sheets of spider webbing! You hop away from a particularly large web net that threatens to engulf you and then from another…and another. Soon your full attention is on dodging webs and you lose track of both Firinne and Zellara. Then the harrower is again before you, mentally urging you to stay on your path. If the young tiefling stays on her own course, your paths will again converge at this journey’s end.
A period of time later—you honestly can’t tell if it was the period of a few breaths or interminably long—Zellara’s voice again invades your head to announce that you’ve arrived in the dreamscape version of Korvosa where the Hunter of Dreams stalks its prey in the night. You have to take the ghost’s word for it: it’s simply more of the small wisps of webbing drifting through the pitch dark to you. Now and then, you catch a passing glimpse of individual strands of the electric blue web that emanated from the book in the cupola of Nhybur Manor, but the intensity of its light is subdued and swiftly vanishes into the prevalent darkness.
We’re here Zellara’s spirit announces. ‘Here’ proves to be a familiar place to you, yet not one you had any desire to revisit: Gaedren Lamm’s fishery. Firinne is below, as are your other friends. Summoning your courage, you enter the decrepit building, weaving your way carefully through the giant spider webs that hang from the walls and ceilings. You climb down to the lower level, but there’s no sign of your friends—just more webs and darkness. Something’s down here, though—you can sense it just ahead. Then you see it and know in your heart you’ve been misled: An old hatbox sits in the gloom at the edge of your vision. You have a dreadful revelation: The spirit that led you to this horrid place isn’t Zellara and hadn’t been since the moment you briefly lost sight of her amidst the swirling clouds of webbing!
No way I’m opening that! you think as you stare at the hatbox…but you find yourself walking toward it nonetheless. You pick it up. Don’t open it!! You remove the lid and find, as you knew you would, that there’s a decapitated head inside. To your mild surprise, however, it’s not Zellara’s head you behold--it’s Firinne’s!
Suddenly, the tiefling’s mouth opens in a silent scream. That’s horrible enough, but a strand of the electric blue web streams forth from it, striking you in the forehead, where it clings tenaciously. Another strand bursts from her ragged neck and slithers swiftly into the darkness like a racer snake. I trusted you and that harrower’s spirit, and now we’re both trapped! Firinne’s voice sounds in your mind. You have an awful feeling that the tiefling’s accusation was passed between you and her head through the glowing blue web that now connects you. It’s all your fault! Your fault! Your fault!
Firinne’s head starts to roll and bounce it the box as it endlessly berates you. To your horror, you see that the blue web thread that trails off into the darkness is bouncing and twitching. If the line is anything like a strand of spider webbing, all the movement will alert the spiders to the exact location where its prey is caught!
”Please stop! I didn’t mean for this to happen!” you tell Firinne, but her head keeps snarling that it’s all your fault and tries to leap out of the box, pushing off with its dangling neck tendons in an attempt to bite you! That’s enough to spook you just enough to drop the hatbox and take a step backward…right into a great web that stretches from floor to ceiling. As you struggle to escape, a new voice invades your mind and chills you to the bone: There you are. We are coming.
Sleep claims you, but you keep the Harrower spirit’s words close to your heart. At first, you dream that you and Emi follow a translucent, middle-aged woman (Must be the harrower’s spirit) through a space of utter blackness. You do not fear the journey, however; instead you use the period of sleepwalking to heal your lingering wounds from the battles at Nhybur Manor and even refresh your daily spells and abilities. You’re not sure how much time has passed when your dream begins to change. Softly glowing fog rolls though the darkness, and it becomes harder to keep track of Emi and the harrower’s spirit. Suddenly, you realize the wispy stuff floating around you is no fog—it’s strands and small sheets of spider webbing! You hop away from a particularly large web net that threatens to engulf you and then from another…and another. Soon you’re full attention is on dodging webs and you lose track of Emi and your harrower guide. The floating webs get no less numerous, but their glow seems to be subduing and the encompassing darkness grows ever deeper. The darkness is inescapable: It takes you. You’re not sure if the webs ensnare you as well when your world goes dark….
When you regain your senses, you find yourself curled up on the floor in the room pictured on the Waxworks harrow card that the sleeping Ravnos bunny-kicked out of Tassira’s backpack. There’s no sign of Emileva or your ghostly guide. Two large cocoons dangle over the vat-turned-funnel-web: Kayleigh and Nebbin are wrapped in one, Tassira and a lump that must be her familiar Ravnos in the other. With a start, you realize you apparently fell asleep atop a sheet web that covers the chamber floor. To your surprise, though, you have no trouble standing up: the webbing is barely even tacky and seems to pose no threat to ensnaring you.
You gracefully hop up onto the edge of what was once the wax vat; now it’s more like the opening of a well. Remembering how the probing legs of a great spider emerged from the hole in your vision, you decide it wise to scout a bit, peering down into the opening to see if any arachnids lurk therein. You’re surprised to instead see a silvery surface just a few feet down inside the well, like ridiculously clear water…or a mirror. Your face is reflected in it…sort of. It’s the face of you as a teenager, when your tiefling features first manifested themselves. And now you’re experiencing the painful transformation again….
Claws grow and burst from the skin where your hands were. The protrusions that in the past were your growing horns, however, are now on the sides of your face, on each side of your jaw. More skin and flesh tears away as fanged mandibles emerge. And your tail…no, there’s pain all over the rest of your body. This is no mere tail forming…. Your body convulses are rips asunder, revealing not a tiefling but the ettercap within. All thoughts of rescuing the webbed captives seep from your mind. The fools were weak enough to allow themselves to be ensnared; they deserve nothing more than to have you drain them of their lifesblood.
You’re about to feed when your thirst for blood is momentarily overcome by a recollection of what the harrower spirit told you earlier before you willing entered the dreamscape to rescue your new friends and Madame Carington: You hold power over the dreamlands because you chose to go there, while Kayleigh, Nebbin, Tassira, and her cat familiar might be at a disadvantage, having been ensnared and drawn there through the magical trap.
Instead of sinking your mandibles into the cocoon that encase the priestess and her muscular boyfriend, you instead begin shaking them with all your might. ”Wake up! Wake up and fight for your freedom!” you shout before leaping like a jumping spider (NO—like the agile tiefling you know yourself to be!) to the bundled form of Tassira and Ravnos before repeating the process. You grin as you feel movement stir within each cocoon…but then the grin’s frozen on your face as a pair of fangs pierce the back of your neck and you fall to the floor as fast-acting venom paralyzes you! You hope that the cocooned comrades you awakened can get free in time to save you, but then your eyes behold something that utterly sinks all hope. Somehow your eyes deceived you: the web cocoons aren’t captives—they’re egg sacs! And hundreds of grayish-white, hand-sized spiders burst from them to feed on you!
You awaken at dawn. Your sleep was troubled by dreams you can’t recall now. You realize you’re in your room at the old Temple of Aroden…but that doesn’t seem right. Didn’t you and your friends evacuate that building before the coming of the Queen’s physicians and their Gray Maiden bodyguards?
Other elements seem off: very little light seems to seep through the cracks of the shuttered windows, making it seem more like dusk than dawn. Also, what light there is reveals cobwebs festooning the chamber; it seems the old priests or their young Lamb charges have been neglecting their cleaning duties. Wait…those aren’t cobwebs, they’re spider webs! A deep dread about Kayleigh’s wellbeing suddenly overtakes you, and you scramble out of bed to check on her. She’s not in her room and you recall that she prays for spells at dawn in a small side shrine the kindly priests of Aroden graciously allowed her to dedicate to Milani. Hustling to that location, you find her kneeling piously before the statue of Milani. Only….
…you’re not sure the figure is Kayleigh, or a living person at all. It looks more like a kneeling person who’s had buckets of plaster dumped out over their head, or maybe a statue-in-progress whose details have yet to be chiseled by the sculptor. Again, it takes an extra moment or two for your foggy morning brain to register that the white stuff is actually a silken cocoon.
“Leave her alone!” The familiar words spill from your mouth, but they’re followed by a pair of unfamiliar sensations. First, when you instinctually try to draw your greatsword and step forward to rescue Kayleigh, you find you don’t have the weapon with you. Second, something grabs your bare feet, tripping you. As you land painfully on all fours, you realize a web sheet has been woven across the floor like some nigh-invisible carpet…and you’re caught in it!
You realize that you’re too strong to be trapped for long…but this web is unusually strong as well.
Your struggles alert the web-spinners responsible for the trap that something has blundered into the snare. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of hand-sized spiders (your hand, not one of Kayleigh’s dainty mitts), black, sleek, and with pinpoints of blue light glinting in their myriad eyes, begin to close, descending from the shadows of the shrine’s ceiling on invisible web strands. No problem, you think, realizing that you can likely smash the things to pulp with your bare fists.
You get back to your feet, but it’s more of a struggle than you’d imagined—the webbing is super-sticky and tough to tear through. As you fight your way, foot by foot, toward Kayleigh, the spiders dangle just out of smashing range, spinning more silk to restrain you. Soon the air is thick with sticky sticky strands, making it difficult to see. It’s like a snowstorm, you think Only with silk. A silkstorm!
By the time you’ve staggered across the shrine to your girlfriend’s side, movement is becoming difficult. You realize you’re running out of time to rescue her. Without a blade, you’ll have to either rip Kayleigh free from her silk prison with your bare hands or lift her and carry her out of the deathtrap. When you touch her, however, your hands stick to her, and you find you can’t lift her because her web wrap has her glued to the floor. More and more silk drops from the dangling spiders, coating all of you. When you try to move, the sticky stuff constricts, limiting your range of motion even more.
Too late, you realize you’re doomed. Your last act before the webbing immobilizes you is to kneel behind Kayleigh, pressing against her back and engulfing her in an embrace; hopefully, your bulk will shield her from the hungry spiders when they inevitably decide to feast upon the pair of you. As your resistance grows feeble, an arachnid army indeed alights upon you to finish the task of cocooning you against Kayleigh’s already captive form. As you try to accept your fate, you remember a conversation the party had with Madame Carrington about one of the oneiromancer’s dreams in which she saw a similarly cocooned Korvosan citizen emerge from its silk wrap as a horrific spider monster. Hey—maybe this is just a dream! you think. That notion’s quickly replaced, however, by a more Nebbin-esque thought: Will Kayleigh still love me if we’re both transformed into otter caps?
The notion that maybe this whole thing is just a dream makes you try escaping from the webbing one last time. You summon the rage that occasionally gives you extra strength and even call upon the power of your auspicious mark (or at least you think you manage to do those things). You feel a few sticky threads expand and tear, then a few more, and then dozens at a time. Now certain this is just a dream, you pull free from Kayleigh’s shrouded form, falling awkwardly to the floor. You can’t see well for some reason—Sticky web fragments in your eyes, perhaps?—and rub your eyes to clear your clouded vision. Kayleigh may still be in danger…as may be the rest of your friends.
You feel a bit lonely. Your friends seem preoccupied with other things and barely notice you. Firinne’s trying to find her place in the party; Emi’s obsessing over her lover, Vencarlo; Kayleigh still insists on fighting the futile battle against the blood veil; a poor doting Nebbin never leaves the priestess’s shadow. I’m overdue for a little ‘me time’ you decide.
You’re walking aimlessly south through the streets of Old Korvosa, not yet having settled upon a final destination. It occurs to you that you haven’t visited your parents recently. Sure, they’ve been fighting and have said some downright nasty things about your new friends…but they’re still family, all you have now that Olaf’s dead. …Been murdered, you correct yourself grimly. Besides, the food there is much better than what Kayleigh or the priests of Aroden throw together.
You’re already near the island’s southern end when you remember that your parents’ home isn’t on Endrin Isle—it’s across the strait in the Heights! Oh dear—and there’s also the quarantine to consider! Still, you’ve come a long way…it wouldn’t hurt to see if any of the creaky, handmade spans across the water are unwatched.
To your surprise, you find a contingent of Queen Ileosa’s Gray Maidens actually fortifying one of the bridges! One of the armored women waves you across, giving a friendly nod as you pass. That seems strange, you note mentally.
Uphill you go until you reach the Vantyev estate. You are invited inside immediately, where both your mother and father greet you with sincere smiles and warm hugs. Also strange, you think.
You put your backpack on a table and are about to release Ravnos when your mother takes your hand and drags you across the room to your father. “Doesn’t our daughter look absolutely radiant?” she gushes, earning a nod from your father. ”That’ll happen when you separate yourself from riffraff.” he comments. Though his words are jarring and cruel, the pleasant smile never leaves Lord Vantyev’s face.
The butler, Lorne, enters the chamber, offering a rare smile when he spots you. ”So good to see you again, Lady Tassira! You look well. I hope you’ll be able to stay more than an hour or two this visit.” He moves to the table, ostensibly to take your pack to your room…after releasing Ravnos, of course. Moments later, his voice—sounding a bit put off this time—announces, ”It appears Lady Tassira has been neglecting her feline companion of late….”
Turning around, you behold Lorne pulling Ravnos out of his compartment. Your familiar is obviously dead, desiccated and wrapped in what appears to be spider webbing! That’s not just strange…that’s WRONG!
”Oh dear!” Lady Vantyev exclaims lightly. In a somewhat patronizing voice she adds, ”I bet this happened because of your new friends. You’ve been spending altogether too much time with those…vagabonds. And they have such strange ideas of what’s right and proper.”
Lord Vantyev nods at his wife’s wisdom. ”You should move back in here with us,” he says. ”Our family fortunes may again be bright! I think I mentioned to you recently about meeting with some new business associates. Well, it’s all been arranged! The Vantyev family is now heavily-partnered with Korvosa’s biggest shiver producers and distributors. It’s not a perfect arrangement—apparently some of our new associates are members of some spider cult—but even that has its benefits: They’ve planned a trap for those annoying parasites you’ve been chumming with recently. You won’t even have to say an awkward farewell to them because they’ll all be dead!”
”No….”
”Think about it, my daughter,” Lady Vantyev coos temptingly. ”All the free shiver you could ever want or need!”
”No!” Turning to face your mother, you behold a stunning change in her appearance: She’s now haggard, 25 or so pounds lighter, her hair is unkempt, and her eyes are sunken and unfocused. Lady Vantyev gives a rictus grin before performing a magician’s parlor trick, hiding her right hand behind her back briefly before bringing it again into sight and splaying her fingers, revealing a milky vial of shiver wedged between each of her fingers.
”NO!” you scream again, an interjection you repeat once more when your father, with catlike speed, moves behind you and seizes you in a full-nelson. ”Hold still,” your father growls as he tightens the hold painfully. Meanwhile, your mother opens two vials of shiver, steps forward, seizes your head and mercilessly pries your jaws open before pouring the liquid in your mouth! Holding your mouth shut with one preternaturally powerful hand, the gaunt woman uses the other to pinch your nostrils closed, forcing you to swallow once your air runs out. Then she steps back and smiles. ”Feeling better about the arrangement now, my dear?”
”NO!” you roar defiantly, though you’re still more-or-less helpless in your father’s grasp. ”I’ll never go along with this madness! I’ll never be a part of the shiver trade…or of this family!”
”Told you she was a lost cause,” Lord Vantyev comments almost casually to his wife as he exerts more pressure on the wrestling lock, almost cutting off the flow of blood to your brain. ”Disappointing yet not altogether unexpected. A shame….” The shiver you ingested starts to dull your senses…not an entirely unpleasant experience.
”Another guest,” Lorne announces breezily as he opens the front door somewhere behind you. Soft footsteps approach. Your father twists to one side and a moment later you experience a sharp, excruciating pain as a thin blade punctures the skin of your back and then the kidney beneath. An arm reaches around your father—whose grip on you hasn’t loosened one bit during the attack—bearing a strange, stylized knife in the general shape of a key. It slips through your ribcage and lightly punctures your heart. As you slowly bleed out—technically dying in my father’s arms, your drugged subconsciousness notes—a cruel voice whispers, ”I’m going to enjoy carving you up, pretty girl. You’ll be my masterpiece!” And that’s just what the Keylock Killer does, painstakingly carving all sorts of strange symbols into the skin of your arms….
THE CUPOLA AT NHYBUR MANOR
Nebbin and Kayleigh awaken from terrible nightmares to find themselves staring directly into the strange glowing web they discovered in the cupola at Nhybur Manor, only now the web isn’t bright blue—it’s more of a radiant silvery-white. And the angle is all wrong; crouched down in the cupola, the web ought to be this visible only if they were tilting their heads back. Memory is a tricky thing at the moment; reaching back beyond what was hopefully nothing more than a terrifying nightmare, each recalls how the brilliant blue web had shifted, forming a strange symbol….
”A symbol of sleep!” Kayleigh gasps, recalling the last thing she remembers before the nightmare took her. ”We triggered a trap. It put us to sleep.”
That would explain the weird angle: if slumber overtook everyone and caused them to fall to the floor, they’d likely be looking straight up into the electric web spreading out from the open book on the lectern. Still, the magical web seems far too close. That’s when Kayleigh and Nebbin make a bone-chilling discovery as their senses finally start to fully function again—they’re not on the floor but are instead lying side-by-side on their backs in a mostly-transparent sheet web that suspends them two feet above the cupola floor! The sticky sheet stretches in all directions, likely to all six walls of the hexagonal chamber. The opening of the spiral staircase that leads down into the manor proper looks more like the opening of a funnel web.
Movement at Nebbin’s side brings with it the fear that a cat-sized spider is upon him, but closer inspection reveals…a cat-sized cat. Ravnos. Tassira’s familiar releases a single plaintive meow that Nebbin takes to mean, “I require assistance, human! Get me out of this mess!” Beyond the trapped cat, her master, Emi, and Firinne all lay senseless atop the web. Weirdly, a single strand connects from the silvery web above to some part of the head of each of the still-sleeping heroes.
While Tassira looks only about as beat up as she was at the end of the drawn-out battle against the spider cult, Emi and Firinne look healed for the most part. Kayleigh, however, looks haggard, her face and every other inch of exposed skin bloodied and covered with tiny red welts, like hundreds of spiders have been treating her as a buffet. At that moment, Tassira groans; maybe something is hurting her as well.
Nebbin gently turns his head as he slowly takes inventory of his strength and motor skills. He feels like he’s only just awakened from a long sleep, perhaps after a trying illness. But he feels his strength has returned, and the fog in his mind is rapidly burning away. He feels the urgent need to do something before the spiders he knows must be around somewhere come to feast upon him and his friends.
Kayleigh, driven by terror and desperation, yanks, twists and squirms her way free from the web. Her efforts, however, reverberate all along the springy web; the section of web near the spiral staircase starts to bounce and quiver as well as something hurries up from the darkness below.
Ravnos lets out an angry/worried yowl and starts thrashing about.
All the caliby accomplishes is swaying back and forth like a webbed, furry piñata.
"Ahh! Everyone, wake up!" he calls, unsure if Emi and Firinne are still asleep or not. Maybe whatever spell caught him and Kayleigh affected them even more? It must have if they're not already trying to escape!
He struggles to free himself, but the web is too sticky!
THE CUPOLA AT NHYBUR MANOR
Nebbin and Ravnos find the web too sticky to escape, yet somehow Kayleigh manages to get free. It looks like the cleric is ready and willing to try to help Nebbin pull free . There's no response to Nebbin's call from Tassira, Emi, or Firinne.
Nebbin futilely struggles to free himself again.
THE CUPOLA AT NHYBUR MANOR
Nebbin's calling out to the others and his and Kayleigh's desperate attempts to escape the great web alert its architects to the presence of guests: A pair of albino ettercaps—at once looking more humanlike in their torsos while appearing even more arachnoid in their heads, limbs, and extremities—slink up from the black void of the spiral staircase and close on Nebbin and Kayleigh, not yet taking note of Ravnos. Each has a silver strand of glowing webbing attached to its forehead, much like Emi, Firinne, and Tassira. The nightmarish aberrations seem to have no difficulty skittering across the sticky web. Each creature’s movement ends about 5 feet shy of their intended targets, leaving that much webbing between the heroes and a melee attack on the ettercaps' ugly faces. Seeing only Kayleigh free to possibly oppose them, the creatures' toothy grins widen as the much larger Nebbin continues to struggle within the web.
Alone against two fearsome foes, Kayleigh despairs but a moment. Then she silently calls on Zellara and the powers of her harrowing to bolster her defenses against the nightmare ettercaps. Picking through all her knowledge, she recalls something one of the priests at the Pantheon of Many must have told her of such creatures.
"Nightmare creatures have damage resistance and regeneration! We need to hit them with good or silver weapons or good-aligned spells!"
Kayleigh raises her silver morningstar threateningly, ready to swing it should her foes draw nearer; she knows better than to try to take the fight to the beasts with 5 feet of mostly-intact web between her and the monsters.
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Ravnos doesn't stop thrashing about. It's perhaps for the best that Tassira isn't awake to see this--she could realize it'd make giving her a bath much easier.
Nebbin feels the webbing tear, but still can't quite free himself from the sticky strands.
THE CUPOLA AT NHYBUR MANOR
Kayleigh's committed to keeping the ettercaps back to give Nebbin time to escape the sheet web; it never occurs to her that he might have much difficulty busting loose. The ettercaps prove to be intelligent adversaries: the one nearest to Nebbin ignores the big man for the moment, spraying strands of webbing at Kayleigh from spinnerets located near its abdomen. A moment later, the second monster scurries along the web, attacking with a dizzying array of fangs and claws.
Kayleigh barely manages to dodge the incoming webbing, swinging her morningstar and making contact with the second monster. The blow doesn't cause a lot of damage, but it knocks the thing off balance enough that it only manages to graze the cleric's arm with a claw, failing to draw blood.
To end its turn, the web-caster creeps up next to Nebbin.
for condition: entangled
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Ravnos thrashes around again!
And continues to be useless!
With a mighty lunge, Nebbin pulls himself free of the webs. Pulling his sword, he prepares to fight!
THE CUPOLA AT NHYBUR MANOR
Although poor Ravnos can't seem to escape the web, Nebbin finally does, popping up by Kayleigh's side and drawing his greatsword! The two albino ettercaps do not looked pleased at this development. Still, they have some potent natural weapons and decide to use them!
Not a single claw or fang lands on the newly-escaped couple, but Kayleigh again connects lightly with her silver morningstar. After their futile flurry, each ettercap takes a careful backward 5-foot step atop the sheet web, again putting a sticky 5-foot cushion between themselves and the escaped humans, should Nebbin or Kayleigh wish to continue meleeing.
As the young couple stares down the spidery monsters, Kayleigh offers Nebbin the use of her silver morningstar. "Your sword might work better if you want to cut away some of the web; this might be better for caving in skulls."
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Ravnos, in a fit of understandable frustration, finally bares her claws and digs them into her sleeping master's clothes as she starts wriggling her way free of her web!
And at last, she's free!
Nebbin lets his sword fall and takes the morningstar. However, not wanting to get caught again in the web, he instead lays about him with the weapon, hoping to clear as much space as possible.
Nebbin moves forward and attacks the nearest ettercap.
THE CUPOLA AT NHYBUR MANOR
Seeing Kayleigh and Nebbin free from the web and the big male wielding a silver weapon that he uses to tear up the sheet web with relative ease, the nightmare ettercaps both retreat down the webbed-over spiral staircase. Nebbin eventually damages the web enough that those still trapped in it (Emi, Firinne, Tassira) sink to the chamber floor, which will make it easier for them to escape the web once they regain consciousness. Kayleigh uses a dagger to cut the silvery web cords connected to her friends' heads, but as was the case for Emi in the waking realm, the severed cords try to rejoin and mend. Emi and Tassira gasp and awaken, their cords fading away, but Firinne's reforms and the tiefling groans in discomfort. Kayleigh's sharp eyes notice that Emileva isn't as beat-up as she recalled and asks if her friend downed a curing potion.
Your nightmare continues, but a new element is added: an ominous chanting in the distance. (In Tassira's case, her parents join in the chant.) You believe a foul ritual is underway, and you're the sacrifice or target at the heart of it. Something about your very being starts to change....
Charisma Damage: Emi 2, Firinne and Tassira 1.
The horrific nightmares you and your friends just experienced are consistent with multiple nightmare spells. (Tassira would know that she experienced something worse than a typical nightmare spell that caused her to remain trapped in the dream longer than is usual for the spell itself and inflicted some Charisma damage.)
Another implication occurs to you: To cast a nightmare spell, you generally have to know that your target is asleep (or soon will be). This implies some sort of communication between cultists in the real world and those in the dream realm (as the nightmare spells affected everyone immediately). Since each member of the party seems to have been affected by nightmare spells, it would also follow that at least five foes capable of casting that spell (or using it as a spell-like ability) are still at large nearby.
Ettercap Knowledge Check
Since the party has battled a few of these now, I'm going to assume they know the creatures are evil aberrations with the following capabilities: poisonous bite, web ability, spider empathy, and a penchant for building traps.
Nightmare Creature Knowledge (Planes) Check
Nightmare creatures are intimidating and stealthy versions of corporeal creatures. They have an unnatural link to the most terrifying corners of the Dimension of Dreams, though they retain their creature type and are not technically outsiders. They are almost always evil.
A nightmare creature has many special defenses: DR 5/good or silver; regeneration 5 (good spells and weapons, silver); and a strong resistance to illusion effects.
For special attacks, nightmare creatures have both a fear aura and frightful presence (though the latter only affects creatures generally weaker than the nightmare creature). They have mastered multiple spell-like effects: (detect thoughts, protection from good, suggestion, shadow walk, dream, and nightmare. When using either of the latter two spell-like abilities, a nightmare creature can control the victim’s dream, keeping it asleep and inflicting mental anguish that causes Charisma damage. A creature reduced to 0 Charisma in this way dies.
A nightmare creature has the ability to feign death.
"Can you wake her up?" Nebbin asks, pointing to Firinne. "We need to follow them!"
THE CUPOLA AT NHYBUR MANOR
Kayleigh follows Nebbin's suggestion and moves to Firinne once a path has been cleared through the web to the sleeping tiefling. Kayleigh shakes her but to no effect.
"And I'm pretty much out of spells after the fight with the cultists. Maybe we can carry her back to the clinic and I can try something in the morning."
Emi looks around slowly and groggily before she tries raising herself up onto her elbows. The place she's in doesn't look like her dream, but it also doesn't exactly match the top floor of the house, though it's closer.
Kayleigh and Nebbin's conversation prompts Emi to sit up.
"That won't do any good. Firinne and I were the only ones not put to sleep. We tried everything we could think of to wake the rest of you up and nothing worked. We followed you by staring at the symbol and letting it put us to sleep."
Emi pauses to stand and looks around again closely, like she's trying to decide something.
"Most everything is what Firinne told me, but I think I understand well enough between it and the voices to explain this much. We're now in the dream plane or place, not in our regular Korvosa. So two places, Korvosa, and Dream Korvosa. But three states: awake and in Korvosa, asleep and in Dream Korvosa, that's where Firinne is still, and I just was. Third is awake in Dream Korvosa. That's us now."
"The difference between asleep and awake is hard to explain since I think we're all still asleep in Korvosa, but here goes... Asleep is like being pulled by a strong current. You have no control over where you are, or what happens, even maybe what you think. You can react some but you can't really act on your surroundings, things are unstable and can completely change in an instant. I think it might be an illusion."
"This, being awake here, is more like lucid dreaming, when you're dreaming half-awake and know it. You can exert your will on what happens because you know it's a dream. That's something Firinne told me. She said to keep in the forefront of my mind I was rested, healthy, and well. And now I am, at least more than I was, or am in real Korvosa."
"We'll need to wait for Firrine to break though, we can't do it for her. But then I think we can go where we want more or less, like we could if we were in real Korvosa. Do you hear the chanting? I feel like it's for us, like we're meant for sacrifice, something bad. We need to find Carington, and I'm guessing she's there already. We should try to track it to its source."
Tassira is immeasurably relieved to have awakened and been released from her webby prison.
"...those nightmares we experienced..." The arcanist sighs with fatigue. "...those definitely weren't natural. There were at least five nightmare spells targeting us--meaning there's at least five such creatures who can cast the spell nearby."
"...and those ettercaps...? They were nightmare monsters, from the Dimension of Dreams." Tassira pauses.
"...does that mean we're not on the Material Plane?"
THE CUPOLA AT NHYBUR MANOR
Kayleigh looks at Emi uncertainly, like she doesn't understand fully what her friend's trying to tell her. Tassira's words give her pause as well. Kayleigh doesn't mention it, but she thinks both Emi and Tassira look a little bit gnarly after awakening from their magic-induced nightmares.
"Anyone else feeling tired after their nightmare?" Kayleigh asks, intending to use one of her remaining restorative touches to perk herself up. "Heeeey," the priestess says slowly, "I've got my full complement of restorative touches, even though I know I used some earlier on myself and Nebbin. And I think my positive energy channels have been restored, too!" Her excitement fails a bit, however, when she holds up her welt-covered hands. "I didn't heal, though. Looks like I actually took more damage during my nightmare--I got swarmed by thousands of spiders...." Kayleigh falls silent, not wanting to relive that horror again.
Kayleigh's silent for a bit longer as her mind processes things. Turning to Emileva, she asks, "So...the rules in a dream are different? Is that what you're saying? I suppose that's possible.... It seems Milani has granted me a fresh set of restorative touches and channels; does that mean if I pray for my spells they'll be granted, too?"
Turning to Tassira the priestess shrugs. "It's probably worth a try; we have to wait for Firinne to awaken anyways."
I wasn't clear--the chanting you heard in your nightmares only occurred there; Emi and Tassira don't hear it once they're awake. (At least not yet.)
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When Kayleigh and Tassira have finished regaining their spells, the priestess again checks on Firinne. The tiefling has still not awakened, and it appears her suffering has gotten worse: Her teeth are gnashing and her upper lip has curled into a sneer or snarl; her clawed hands seem more gnarled and twitch and clench occasionally. Kayleigh is reminded somewhat of Madame Carington's condition when she first found her unresponsive, but this seems different. Firinne doesn't seem frail in body like the old oneiromancer; her suffering seems more mental.