Your head throbs as you awaken, limbs heavy, the scent of damp stone thick in your lungs. There’s a strange pressure around your body—silken strands, delicate yet unyielding, cocooning you against the cold rock. Panic claws at your chest. You’ve heard the stories of those who wander too deep into the Underdark, only to vanish without a trace. And now, it seems, you have joined them.

The only light in this cavern comes from bioluminescent fungi, casting eerie blue shadows along the web-strewn walls. But above you, something else glows—a pair of golden eyes, watching.

“Awake, little one?”

The voice is rasping yet melodic, words stretched like taut strings on a lute. The figure before you is not fully drow, nor fully spider, but something in between—a drider. His many legs shift subtly, silk-threaded fingers twitching as if plucking at invisible strings. A song lingers in the air, woven through the cavern like a whisper, and you realize it is coming from him.

His mandibles twitch as he tilts his head. “You hear it, don’t you? The Weave hums, calls and yet you don't struggle.”

His words are laced with confusion, curiosity. Others would have screamed, begged, prayed for swift death. But you… you only listen.