Heat washed over Dawn, waking her from the sweet dream she had been in. Grief wacked her body as she realized that Arrion was still dead and her brain was torturing her.
And then she noticed the situation. She was coated in some substance that was restricting her from moving. It caught in her eyelashes, making her feel like blinking while making it hard to do so.
She heard Fendrel's voice, though it was far more snappish than it usually was, "Aldresh! Careful. You don't want to set us all on fire!" Then his voice took his usual more gentle tones, "Don't worry, Your Highness. I'll get you out in no time."
True to his word it was not much longer before what had been all over her was pulled off by the sorcerer. She surveyed the camp, somewhat bewildered. Everything was coated in webbing. That and flames that were flickering along the webs.
Everyone but the sorcerers had been coated in the stuff as well. Well, even they had bits of it stuck to them but they seemed to have gotten out of it on their own.
Fendrel had a bit hanging in his hair, and Gysen had it along his arm. Aldresh had burning bits of web that was slowly melting off of him.
There was a giant pinkish spider that was backing off, hissing, from the young pyromaniac who was so in his element at the moment. Fendrel left her and went to go help Gysen get everyone else out of the webbing that they were encased inside of.
Still confused, Dawn stood up. She felt a small pain in her arm and noticed that she seemed to have been stung by something. Shaking her head to clear it from the images of Arrion that still intruded on her she then went to get her sword but realized that it was still in the tent.
It did not really matter though. The spider at that moment gave one final screech before it went up in smoke. Afterwards, Aldresh collapsed though he had the most ridiculous grin on his face.
"W-what just happened?" Vixen stared at the huge pink spider and rubbed her arm. "What is that thing?"
"Some kind of giant spider," Lowks was dismissive, "It must have been hiding when we checked this place for any threats. How did something that big manage to hide though?"
"Underground." Gysen said as he walked over to the way to happy about this pyro. "Good job, Aldresh. Fire is the best thing against that thing. At most I would have been able to scare it off."
Aldresh grinned, "Think there are any more around?"
"….If there are they won't come close after that display of yours."
"You know what it was?" Dawn asked the oldest of the magic users with them.
Gysen nodded, "A bit of an oddity. It's a spider that's chief prey is sentient creatures. Its poison is not deadly but rather peculiar. It puts its prey into a dream of the one they love most. Which is where it got its name."
Dawn looked at the carcass of the spider and felt that it was truly a loathsome thing, using such a means to get prey. Making a mockery of people's deep feelings in order to kill them.
Even at her worst she would never have done such a thing. "Well, it's dead so let's get going."
No one really argued with her as they really did not want to go back to bed after that.
She noticed as they were packing up that the children had actually been ignored by the spider, but had just slept through it. When she expressed puzzlement Gysen told her that the Eros Spiders never go after children as their poison does not work on them.
She nodded. Everyone seemed to be just a bit out of sorts after what had happened, other than a few who seemed not at all affected. She did not ask anyone what they had seen in their induced dream.
None of the sorcerers seemed all that affected, as if the poison had simply had no effect. Tira and the clerics were pretty much the same. Brilma and Colton brushed it off. Both Aklane and Kion seemed embarrassed and acted like they wanted to put it behind him. Vixen was irritable about the whole thing. Lowks just had a far away look in his eye but other than that acted normal.
Raven, she could not help but notice, just sort of went into a trance. He seemed utterly out of it. Was barely responding to anything and was generally all around affected by whatever he had dreamed.
She let it be. Just focused on getting out of there. She had to call Raven several times before he climbed up behind her on Zyph.
As they left the vicinity Dawn reflected that her dream had not been that bad, except that it had been just that – a dream. But for some of the others, she could see why they might be upset. Herself, she just dreamed of her dead husband, for the others they might have had an old wound open if they had ever suffered from unrequited love.