The wet and weary adventurers gathered on the outskirts of the web. The puddles beneath their feet were stained black from soot washed from the trees by the relentless rain. Blackened remains of crispy, curled up spiders were sparsely scattered about, and the air smelled of petrichor and death.
Victoria took to the center of the formation, Eli moved to the front, while Iris, Autumn and Titus stood together on one side of the perimeter. Iris hadn't been certain where she belonged in the formation, and briefly considered blipping in and out from the inside, but ultimately decided that her huge sword would pose too much of a danger to the adventurers around her. She instead chose to stay just behind the outermost edge of the formation, where she would have more space to wield her weapon.
The mage who had drawn the tracking sigil onto the Matriarch stood ahead of the formation, beside the Dreamweaver. His sigil gave him intrinsic knowledge of the Matriarch's position up to a range of several miles. The Dreamweaver entered his mind to access that knowledge, providing herself with the same understanding of the Matriarch's position. Then, she reached out to the minds of the gathered adventurers and implanted an illusion into each of them. There were faint murmurings and discussions amongst the adventurers as a small floating marker in the form of an upside down triangle appeared in their vision, indicating the Matriarch's distant position.
Iris briefly experimented with the marker. While looking in the general direction of the marker it was opaque and impossible to ignore, but if she looked away it would fade and linger almost unnoticed at the periphery of her vision.
"That marker is the Matriarch," the Dreamweaver announced, "the first goal of our mission today is to survive, the second goal is to slay our target. Any questions?"
There were headshakes and murmurs throughout the crowd. The Dreamweaver turned to Lieutenant Kerrick and Sergeant Cole, and nodded.
"Move out!" Sergeant Cole announced, and the march into the web began.
The chaotic, crisscrossed webs stretched between the giant trunks from forest floor to canopy, where they wrapped around and consumed branches whole in a thick, seemingly impenetrable wall.
As they approached the first webs, Cole gave the order to the row of fire conjurers. Eli charged and released a fireball that punched through several layers of web before exploding and engulfing several trunks in flames, the magic of the attack briefly sustained the fires before the rains began to suppress them. On the ground, two adventurers sprayed streams of fire from their palms, igniting and burning away the webs directly in front of the formation. Cole reached into the same pouches from which he'd pulled flammable sand in the prior battle, this time he retrieved small clumps of clay instead. He tossed them into the fires ahead, briefly flashing them green with renewed strength and heat.
The fires quickly faded from the rain or flickered out as the webs that sustained them burned away. The flame throwing adventurers stepped aside as their mana drained, and a high level Hero in red and orange robes stepped up between them. She drew in a deep breath, held it for a moment, and released a breath of flame that spewed outwards in a cone. As the fires did their work, strands of web severed and fell limp, hanging from trunks and branches as the expedition bored a tunnel towards the Matriarch.
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The adventurers continued their cycle of burning magic as the expedition marched slowly onwards. Soon the air was hot and humid, thick with steam from the evaporated rains that condensed into beads on the remaining webs overhead.
Titus's attention was caught by a brief flash of movement in the webs to the side of the expedition, but he did not act. Instead he pointed it out to the adventurers around him, who renewed their weary attention on their surroundings. Autumn looked to Iris, who was breathing deliberate, regulated breaths and darting her eyes around the dark woods that surrounded them.
"You good?" she asked Iris.
"Yeah," Iris said errantly without looking at her.
Autumn frowned, but said nothing else.
In truth, it took most of Iris's efforts not to tremble, and the rest to keep her heart from beating out of her chest. There could be no more hiding from her fears now, they knocked loudly and steadily on the door in her mind she kept them locked behind. Her body screamed that if she continued onwards, she would die, and the only choice she found was to ignore the screams.
I will live, she thought to herself, I will fight and I will live.
The first skirmish came when a spider leapt from the webs on the opposite flank of the formation. There were sudden shouts and a quick explosion as the spider was killed. The fire line at the front continued on, while Sergeant Cole observed the situation from afar. The formation faltered slightly as some adventurers stopped to look in that direction, and those near to it paused to take up defensive postures.
"We march on!" Cole shouted, and so they did.
Throughout the next hour, a few more spiders attacked the slow moving expedition. One dropped from above and landed on an adventurer's shoulders, but was saved by a comrade before he was bitten. Soon there were two or three spiders attacking at once, and the time between attacks grew shorter.
As the attacks progressed to a constant threat, the Dreamweaver extended her awareness across the expedition and out into the dark webs around them. She detected the mind of each adventurer, but ignored them, instead searching beyond the expedition for the minds of the spiders. She passed silent, telepathic updates to Kerrick and Cole about mass movements of spiders she detected beyond anyone's vision, but quickly learned she couldn't easily detect the spiders' minds when they were stationary. This meant they could prepare for attacks from some directions as the spiders moved into position, but would still be surprised by spiders that were in position before they were close enough for her to detect their movement.
Kerrick took the role of managing the fire line, while Cole assumed responsibilities of issuing commands and information to the formation at large. Kerrick adjusted their trajectory to avoid the largest clumps of spiders, and Cole informed the defenders of incoming assaults.
The Dreamweaver traveled absent-mindedly, letting the flow of the crowd direct her as she focused on scanning the woods for minds. She tracked wave after wave of spiders from either side, alerting Kerrick to their positions so he could steer the formation around them. She soon discerned a pattern in their behavior, there were alternating waves and attacks on either side, but they heavily favored one side over the other, causing their path to steer further and further from their desired trajectory.
Cole was caught off guard by the panic he felt with a sudden telepathic message from the Dreamweaver, "they're steering us," her voice played in his mind and her emotions mixed with his, "we're going where they want us to."
He turned to look at her, she was several yards away with several adventurers between them, and was staring absently at the ground.
"We're being set up," he thought, knowing she could hear him, "do we stop? Turn back?"
There was an explosion behind her as another attack was thwarted. In the moment the blast rang out and the flash illuminated the webs around them, she felt the faintest flickers of activity in the darkness. Her eyes widened as she met Cole's gaze, "it's too late."
"Battle ready!" Cameron shouted loudly.