The drow climb through the hatch and descend down the rope ladder, which ends at a platform. A short corridor leads towards a giant chasm, that opens up 30 feet wide. A wind is blowing from down below. The crevice is wrapped up in spider webs, forming a kind of walkway. The web consists of several layers of thick spider ropes. Even the walls have been decorated with the sticky strands. As they look over the edge, they see the lower levels are also layered in spider silk. It is possible to climb the walls, but only for very experienced climbers. Which some of them are not!

After locking the hatch, the siblings gather near the edge. Jharrath uses one of his wands to see if there’s magic at work, but only faint traces of magic linger. Alvra steps onto the webbing, with Lilith close behind. The air currents feel weird. After advancing about 20 feet, the fighter’s foot gets stuck. When they examine the sticky strands, they notice that the webbings glisten in the area where Alvra is trying to get loose. Unfortunately he only manages to get his other foot stuck too. He’s entangled.

People have passed here, so there must be a safe route. The cleric walks back towards the platform, gathers up some dust and small stones and swipes these over the webbings near her brother. The dust clings to the sticky pieces, vaguely showing which way they should not go. When she tries to pull the fighter back to safety, she slips on the treacherous webbing. Now both drow are stuck!

Their siblings move out to help them, but a sudden movement alerts Phaedra to a new danger: in the top right corner she sees a large spider, hiding in the shadows. The beast is green, and has dark eyes which faintly glow red. The shadow spider rushes towards the drow and lashes out with very sharp claws. Phaedra quickly teleports to safety and takes out her spiked chain. When Jharrath is attacked, he uses his boots to zap away. Alvra and Lilith meanwhile try to keep their balance on the treacherous footings. The cleric’s soundburst spell has no effect on the advancing spider, so Alvra casts a globe of darkness.

Phaedra watches the spider’s silhouette become vague, then disappear in the shadows altogether. With all of her senses alert, she suddenly hears a faint rustling behind her and immediately lashes out with her spiked weapon. The chain connects with something solid and the spider again pulls back into the shadows, narrowly missing the dark bolts that Lilith aims at the beast. Alvra tries to cast faerie fire on the creature, but to no avail. Turning, the spider attacks the wizard, or so it thinks. In stead, one of Jharrath’s six mirror images disappears. The wizard quickly summons a salt mephit to help him fight, and shoots Kellgore’s firebolts into the arachnid.

While the shadow creature is occupied, the drow scout approaches her sister and tries -in vain- to free her. Lilith casts a mass shield of faith to help her siblings out; her boots seem to be glued to the web strands. She then calls upon her deity for darkfire. Alvra manages to pull himself free and carefully steps to the side of the crevice. There he casts dancing lights around the spider’s head and grabs his sword.

With only two of the wizard’s mirror images left, Jharrath’s situation is not looking good. The arachnid fanatically bites and claws. Phaedra counterattacks and hits, but the damage is less severe than expected. A full hit of Lilith’s darkfire also has little to no effect.

A soft whistling alerts the Xaniqos to a new danger: in an aperture, two drow appear. They seem satisfied to watch the fight scene from up above. Their grin quickly changes to horror when a sizzling ball of fire roars towards them. The spell detonates with a low roar and the hostile drow are catapulted. One lands in the web – a charred corpse; the other lies smoldering one floor down. Jharrath puts away the bat guano with a satisfied grin.

Alvra swings his sword at the shadow spider, but misses because of the darkness. The spider immediately lashes out and grapples the fighter, which activates the drow’s special armor. Another round of darkfire soars towards the spider, but the flames don’t harm it. The beast, attacked on all sides, tries to take its prey to the Shadow Plane, but the fighter resists. Lilith quickly heals her heavily wounded brother before the arachnid returns, and then casts Bebelith Blessing on herself. She finally manages to pull herself loose and rushes in to help her sister, who is attacking the beast. Again the shadow spider returns to its plane.