1. The Cloakwood

Aiwë beams as the newcomers try the spider.

"That I do, Diets! Why eat something the same every time when there are so many ways to prepare it? So many different notes to the flavours and textures? Why cheapen the experience with a mask over it?" She snaps the joint of the leg to make sure she isn't missing any meat. "I don't always eat things raw. I'd try this grilled next if we had the time." She sticks her tongue out at her cousin.

"What baffles me is why you never learned the spell, especially having to eat Uncle Zen's cooking on expeditions."

Aldous puts the back of his hand to his forehead and feigns a heavy sigh. "Ah, as much as I'd like to continue this conversation, I'm afraid I'm stumped as to how." He holds out his leg stub for emphasis, and the prosthetic limb falls off again. "Get it? That was a triple pun! Kind of..."

He picks up the mechanical leg, inspecting it. "I thought Sheemish was an artificer? I don't mean to doubt the man, but I'm having an awful lot of trouble with this thing..."

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"What baffles me is why you never learned the spell, especially having to eat Uncle Zen's cooking on expeditions."

"No amount of magic could save his cooking," Stella agreed. "One of the reasons I learned to actually cook instead."

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Aldous puts the back of his hand to his forehead and feigns a heavy sigh. "Ah, as much as I'd like to continue this conversation, I'm afraid I'm stumped as to how." He holds out his leg stub for emphasis, and the prosthetic limb falls off again. "Get it? That was a triple pun! Kind of..."

Stella grins and rolls her eyes exageratedly. "Excellent."

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He picks up the mechanical leg, inspecting it. "I thought Sheemish was an artificer? I don't mean to doubt the man, but I'm having an awful lot of trouble with this thing..."

"He only had a day to make it," Stella points out as they continue onward. "Maybe your tadpole keeps knocking it off? We can work on adding more straps and suspenders later...Anyone trained in leatherworking?" she asks idly.
Stella squints, trying to peer inside. She breaths out a druidic word and four dim, floating lights, like stars. (Dancing Lights.) Remembering how this spell winked out in Nashkel Mine when she was taken out, she ruffles through her pack and draws a couple torches, but can't find her tinderbox. She sighs and holds it up for Aiwë to magically light with prestidigitation. "Yeah, yeah..."

Most of the party used shields, so it made the most sense for the spellcasters to bear the torches. While she technically used a bow, she had been getting better at delivering her spells without it. She keeps one torch and hands the other to Aldous.

With a large grin, Aiwë makes a sound with her mouth like a flint striking stone and the torch ignites.

He elbows Aiwë then points at the horror cave. He wishes at this moment he knew that spell Stella had used previously.

Red-glinting eyes wide, Aiwë nods at Dieter and then enters, soaking in every detail. Is she... a drider? On the surface? "So sorry, mistress," she answers in her best imitation of Viconia's accent, "we've never met before. I hope I'm not intruding. I'm Ginafae. What's your name?"

Dieter screams internally seeing Aiwë enter the den

The woman hangs at an angle, mostly wrapped up in webbing. She's about to answer Aiwe when she has a sudden coughing fit. Immediately a biggish spider scuttles across the ceiling, then down onto the woman, all the while dragging a small cocoon. When the cocoon comes within reach, the woman grabs it with a thick arm and bites into it, sucking out the juices of whatever poor thing is inside. The spider climbs back the way it came.

"Hsuuuupl..." she slurps, drowning her cough with the wet meal. Her eyelids flutter over her milky gaze, and she turns to Aiwe's voice. "Hzinafae? Why do you come to visit poor Hsenteol?" Her mouthparts clack, dripping juices.

"Actually, I didn't know you were here. I'm looking for someone I know, I think he might be in here somewhere. I'm glad to have met you though." There isn't an ounce of deception or performance in her tone. "Who were you expecting? I think I can be at least as good company as them for a visit."

"No one here bu Hsenteol and hspiderhs..." The creature's expression is difficult to read, marred as it is by chelicerae.

It takes another long suck from the cocoon. "I wai for ny hhhlove... dz... dzgaw. Dzgaw!" Her slurred speech seems to impede the name of her lover, much to her frustration. Centeol scratches at her scalp, drawing dark driblets of blood. "Nnnnnnn!!!"

Her meal falls to the ground with a splat. It looks to have been some small animal, like a rabbit. Two large spiders move quickly to replace it, bringing out a much larger bundle. From the shape, this one must have some sort of humanoid inside.

Watching with horror Dieter sees the larger cocoon being carried over, he doesn’t know what to do

"Oh no!" Aiwë croons. "Don't be upset. I'm sorry, I've never met someone like you before. Does your mouth hurt you? Or is it the way it's shaped for this language? I can heal a little, and orate even better. I'm a bard, you see. Maybe I can help you with your pronunciation? Imagine how surprised your lover will be when he comes to visit!"

Dieter recognizes the sword as the one mentioned by Tiber. He needs to act to save him but he can’t seem to take that initial step. He breaths deeply trying to squeeze the fear from his body but still nothing.

Centeol pauses, clawed hands digging into her own flesh, and turns her head at an unnatural angle to stare sightlessly down at Aiwe. "Heahl...? You can... cannn'... can'k heahl ne. No ehven he. HE..."

She twists her bulk in the webs that hold her aloft, causing her to spin and sway. Several spiders reach out to the webs with chitinous limbs, evidently trying to orient her properly.

"A bard? You must wri'e ne a hsong. Our hsong. Dzgaw...nnn! and I." All that remain of Centeol's ears are nubs, but she emphatically cups a pudgy hand around one ear, beckoning eagerly with the other hand. "Our hlove ihs h'mmortal. Hsing it."

"Oh, I'd love to sing for you and Jon," Aiwë gushes, fishing out her lyre as quickly as she can. She starts singing before it's fully free.

"Sometimes when the night is deep true
Sometimes I can hear you singing to me." She picks up on her lyre.
"But lately part of me just crumbles
Every time I hear that melody."

"Oo-oo-ooh Oo-ooh," She watches carefully as Stella-Spider creeps by, but her full emotion is in the music. "Our song."

"I feel it
Your true heart's devotion
It need not be spoken, no my dear
You'll be walking somewhere very far away
Where the sky is bright day
And I will hear..."

"Our song."

"And for a moment I can hold it!
And the colors all come back!
like the smell of spring on a shifting wind..

Our song."


Stella gets bardic inspiration.

"Do you see Tiber?" Stella asks everyone quietly as Aiwë talks with the creature. Her mind was racing to conjure up a plan. She sees Dieter frozen and follows his gaze to the cocoon. Ah, there he was. "I'm going to distract the spiders, then go in to get the b—Tiber..." she tells the party, starting to tremble a bit.

She takes a deep breath, relaxes her eyes, and begins tapping out stars in a complex constellation in the air, visualizing one the enormous icy spiders she had seen on an expedition with Papa in the Icewind Dale—as big as the ones they had just fought. After a few moments the constellation expands and forms an Ice Spider Queen. (Conjure Animals)

"Wait for my signal, then go in to fight and draw away the other spiders while I get the cocoon," she whispers to the creature made of fey spirits.

Then, she starts tapping places on her own body, turning herself into constellation of stars. She falls onto all fours as her gear melds into her and her limbs each split into two. Her eyes, split into four, then again into eight, and her senses went wild. Spiders were among Mama's favorite forms, but this would be the first time she had taken one. It was...exhilarating! Like her first time shapeshifting all over again. She couldn't manage such a large spider, not yet, but she could take the form of a Giant Wolf Spider. (Wild Shape)

She tests her spindly legs crawls to the side of the cave entrance, then waves a leg towards the Ice Spider Queen to start, then tries to make her way to the cocoon once a commotion begins.