Deja Vu

General Summary

Introduction

  Night fell, and the adventurers went to sleep. However, rest did not come to them that night. They all awoke the next morning but none of them felt rested. Some thought about it but as they awakened fully the dreams of the night slipped away leaving them with a nagging feeling of unease. They felt as though there was some unfinished task which demanded their attention.

Others remembered in vivid detail being sound asleep when they suddenly felt very cold. An immense void of pitch black loomed over them and threatened to consume them utterly. They heard a thin, pleading voice begging for someone to stand against the darkness. Then the morning came and they woke up feeling troubled and uneasy. They had the feeling that if they had answered the voice, they would not have woken up that morning.

The dreams were the same as the previous night, except they felt more real as though they might be more than just a dream. Nevertheless, the sun was now climbing in the sky and the heroes made their way to the inn for breakfast. Dilzer, the innkeeper, had managed to produce several dishes with the food maker this morning. The white lumpy tasteless porridge was still available but almost no one ordered it.

Morning Meetings

Dariyana surprised her friends when she arrived at Beyonder's Blades. The glaive had been busy fighting with the Ivannian troops against the Yellow Serpents. In a very short time, the vastly superior Ivannian airships had decimated the Yellow Serpents fleet to the point where none of the ships now sailing few the serpent banner. Instead, it was suspected that they had begun using false flags and hiding aboard legitimate merchant ships.

The Ivannian fleet returned to Ivannia and waited for their intelligence agents to turn up further Yellow Serpents locations. Dariyana used the lull to take the portal to Beyonder's Blades and help her friends.

Lilith joined the group at the inn. She still wasn't sure if she wanted to work with the party or not however, they had seemed competent enough in the fight. Cassandra greeted the new arrival happily; she was shy but sensed a possible friend. Tidran , Farren, and Sirkel joined the group at a table.

While everyone was busy eating, a holo-sphere attached underneath the counter began to broadcast a message. (Farren had removed several of these gizmos already, but every time she did another seemed to appear. The message was from Gwydeon . He mentioned (to no one's surprise) that they had experienced another temporal inversion the previous night. However, he had an idea which might help shed some light on the situation but he needed help to carry it out.

Making Plans

  Lilith remembered the grumpy man from the day before. She was fairly certain he was a trouble-maker in town. To her surprise, the rest of the group seemed excited and they dragged her along to visit the tinker. Apparently they had a different view of Gwydeon than she did.

The adventures stepped through the portal doorway into Gwydeon's cave. He greeted them and remarked how nice it was to have people respond promptly instead of waiting a month. Tidran and Farren shuffled nervously when they heard that; it was true they had ignored the inventor in the past.

Gwydeon briskly got down to business. He proposed a way to confirm his suspicions about the unusual events going on. Apparently, some of the outlying settlements in the Beyond were superstitious enough to keep a Moilt in captivity. This odd hypnotic creature could offer random glimpses of the past. Gwydeon suspected that if someone were strong-willed enough they could pull specific answers from the creature.

The hardy adventurers agreed to help Gwydeon out. They needed to obtain wood for the settlement from the Beyond. The hamlets the tinkerer was talking about were far enough out to have avoided the devastation of the skysmashers, and should have plenty of wood available for trade or purchase.

Ensnared

  The heroes trekked off through the ash-coated woods surrounding the settlement. After about a half-days hike the blackened forest began transitioning to silver and green. They were approaching the edge of the area obliterated by the skysmashers.

None of the group noticed the webbing until it was too late. Sticky strands caught the entire party and held them tightly. Farren phased out and was horrified to discover that the threads were woven between and among several different dimensions simultaneously. She remained quite stuck.

Tidran had an idea. He utilized his energy shield to generate a massive pulse of energy into the webbing. With the suddenness of a stretched cable snapping the webbing around him gave way. He cautiously backed up away from the dangerous trap.

Cassandra noticed that she could feel two types of threads; the one was sticky while the other one was not. She carefully tried to pull herself along the dry threads but stumbled and ended up more entangled than ever. With a sigh she continued to struggle against the impossibly thin yet unyielding strands.

Lilith was decidedly not impressed by the situation. She had just met these people and in the span of two days had been attacked by a swarm of flying doom heralds and now she was wriggling around in a massive web. She seriously debated her choice in companions as she tried to free herself.

To Slay a Monster

  After quite a bit of undignified struggling everyone managed to get clear of the entangling webs. A cold feeling settled over the group. A gigantic Stellar Weaver skittered out from between dimensions and pounced viciously on the group! Most of the group drew their weapons against the onrushing monster but Lilith took one look and suddenly realized her safety probably depended on being elsewhere as fast as possible.

The weaver snapped its mandibles with impossible speed as it lunged towards Farren. She dodged and was almost too slow as one of the enormous black mandibles touched her cheek. Farren hacked with all her might at the beast. Again and again her sword bit into its legs. She had upgraded her sword with an energy enhancer and spent a long time practicing with it. However, despite her best efforts the thick chitinous exoskeleton of the beast proved too thick. Time and again her sword clanged off without dealing any damage.

Tidran activated his energy shield and used it to batter the beast's legs. He had been spending a lot of time recently adjusting the grip and modulating its energy output as well as practicing his blows. The sweat poured down his forehead and the veins in his arms bulged from the tremendous effort he put into his attacks. He managed to make a very small dent in one leg for his troubles.

Dariyana held back just out of melee range. The warrior produced her heavy bow and overdrew it, coming dangerously close to breaking it. She was rewarded for her efforts when her bolt sank deeply into the stellar weaver; a gush of horrid looking ichor appeared where her arrow found its mark. Over and over she fired, each arrow scoring damage. She did not feel the strain on her arms required to draw the heavy war bow. Her elation built with each successful hit and she increased her attack speed and ferocity.

The monstrous spider-like beast whirled suddenly and caught Tidran in its powerful jaws. The poison glands at the base of each mandible forced a huge dose of lethal toxins into his system. Tidran dropped to the ground, the venom coursing through his veins. He desperately dug into his backpack, his scrambling hand finally closed around a precious glass vial. He gulped the health potion and was able to stagger to his feet as its rejuvenating liquid fought off the poison.

He collapsed again almost immediately as the poison overwhelmed the limits of the health potion. Grim thoughts swirled through his mind. He only had a few health potions with him; at the rate the poison was eating into his health he doubted they would do much more than buy him a few minutes of time

Lilith was listening to her survival instincts and rapidly putting as much distance as possible between herself and that horrid spider thing. She heard a body hit the ground and looked cautiously over her shoulder. She hesitated. Tidran was down on the ground and she didn't need her training to see the poisonous green tint on his face. She watched in horror how quickly the poison overcame the health potion.

Lilith overcame her fear and ran to her downed companion. She was thankful she had recently brushed up on poisons and especially how to counteract them. She worked quickly but it was touch and go with how vicious the poison was. Finally, Tidran's color turned a more normal shade as Lilith purged the toxins from him.

Meanwhile, Cassandra was very busy trying to affect the monster in some way. Her eyes locked onto the beast and a searing white hot beam lanced out from her forehead. The weaver didn't seem to notice the blast as its thick chitin shell absorbed the energy without taking damage. Cassandra was frustrated but she settled for creating huge boxes of light around the spider monster. The weaver was a creature of the inter-stellar void and disliked light intensely. Cassandra kept the thing busy scurrying from her light and so helped relieve some of the pressure on her friends.

Sirkel tried his best. If he were on his own he would have fled along with Lilith when the creature appeared. However, he had long since realized that his friends had different ideas about facing danger. His equipment on the other hand was suited for spelunking not sword fighting. Still, he gamely tried his best to at least hit the thing while his mind whirred trying to come up with a solution.

Farren was hot and growing increasingly frustrated. Her arms were getting tired from swinging her sword around, and she just couldn't seem to make any headway against the beast. She ducked just time to avoid another vicious bite and then sheathed her blade. She knelt for a minute while the enormous spider skittered away from another of Cassandra's light boxes. A grin crept across Farren's face as she swiftly assembled a sleep inducer. She put all her frustration into her throw and hit the stellar weaver in its face with her gadget.

The huge weaver slumped down. It was asleep, but only just; it would awaken in a few minutes or at the slightest touch. Everyone was thankful for the reprieve. They wiped the sweat from their eyes as they caught their breath in long, ragged gasps. Several more health potions were passed around and rejuvenated the spent heroes. They only had a few minutes respite however and so they huddled together to come up with a strategy.

Lilith produced a flame wall projector from her pack and prepared to set it up. She would project a wall of flame between the beast and her companions. Sirkel pulled a length of rope from his pack and ran to the abomination's legs. Tidran saw what he was doing and tossed him another coil of rope. Sirkel gleefully tied all eight legs together and pulled the knots as tight as possible (he made sure not to move the legs, the creature couldn't feel the rope through its thick armor.)

Farren produced an unusual cypher from her pack. Once set up, it would destabilize molecular bonds in an area around it, turning any armor in the vicinity to a paper thin mush. She gingerly approached the still-dozing weaver and gently planted the cypher underneath it. The device would activate in a couple minutes.

The adventurers withdrew a short distance and waited. About a minute of tense silence slowly ticked by. Suddenly, Farren's device went off! The stellar weaver shuddered awake, its wounds oozing fresh ichor as its chitinous shell all but dissolved. To Sirkel's dismay, the beast phased through the ropes and his careful knots fell uselessly to the ground. Lilith clicked a button and a wall of flames roared to life separating the spider from the group. Cassandra added another box of intense light around the creature.

The abomination from between the worlds moved impossibly quickly sideways out of the way of the flames and blinding light. Everyone in the group felt a powerful and ancient telepathic voice in their minds "powerful prey . . .". The jet black weaver swiftly circled the group away from the flames and attacked once again!

This time however, the heroes fared much better. While the thing was still almost impossibly fast and dodged many of their strikes, their weapons now scored deep gashes where before they had merely bounced off. Everyone was encouraged by the wounds that now appeared all over the spider.

The stellar weaver was not dead yet however, and it painfully reminded the heroes of this fact. It lacerated Farren and then caught Dariyana with another massive dose of poison. Thankfully, Lilith was close at hand and helped the warrior out before the poison went too far.

Sirkel pulled out both his grappling hooks and swung them around his head. With an expert throw he struck the monster in the eyes and with a vicious jerk embedded them deep into the spider's head. He heaved back and tried to hinder the weaver's movement. In a flurry of blades, the group downed the stellar weaver in a final ferocious onslaught!

Aftermath

  The heroes were triumphant! They were quite happy to still be alive, but they nevertheless felt the strain and injuries of the battle. They sat for a time healing wounds and resting tired muscles. They were able to salvage a bunch of the tough chitinous plates which they intended to have fashioned into armor. Furthermore, they pulled off the eight eyes of the creature which served as a lens of sorts allowing them to see into alternate dimensions!

They made a campfire and had a quick meal. Afterwards, Sirkel was still hungry. He was also coincidentally nearly out of cake. He quietly walked back to the corpse of the stellar weaver and cut himself a nice looking steak from the back. Without telling anyone what it was, he roasted it and bit into it. At first, he relished the taste of cooked meat, but that quickly gave way to fear. The meat was poisonous! 

Lilith glared at the Delve. She had warned him against eating the beast earlier and here he was choking on its poison. She let him flail for a moment before heaving a sigh and getting to work. She was able to purge the toxins from Sirkel before it did too much damage. However, before he could get to his feet, she grabbed his rope and tied him firmly to the nearest tree! She wanted to sleep that night and didn't trust him not to sneak another bite.

The rest of the adventurers laughed at Sirkel's predicament and then they too went to sleep. Sirkel shrugged as much as the ropes would allow. He was used to sleeping in awkward places underground and so he leaned against the ropes and soon fell fast asleep.