The Homeshard Heroes find themselves on a strange shard after the ship they were all traveling on is trapped and crushed by what can only be described as a titanic web in the Aether.
They later find that it is called the “Spider's Web.”
Yuna meets
Celica, the young woman she had seen in her dreams recently.
Celica describes how she is unsure about whether she is a real person or not. She explains that her soul was used as a ruse to allow a mastermind war criminal named Ara Elmayar to get closer to her adventuring friends and betray them.
Celica is unsure whether her memories are real or fabricated. She was trapped for millennia in “the maze.”
Celica tells the party that the young elven woman in a blue dress with a yellow flower is not her original body, but instead another “clone” that she was able to steal without Ara's knowledge. At least she hopes that is the case.
Sure enough, Celica seems less like a young, helpless orphan and much more like an accomplished mage who happens to be in a body of a child.
Lyra seems particularly concerned with the child. Is she a friend or foe? Whether she is or not, she certainly seems to be telling the truth.
As the group wraps up what they plan to do with the child Celica, they are attacked by some monstrous spiders of the wood they find themselves in. The spiders are defeated with some light wounds.
After a short rest, the castaways decide to travel to a rustic hut pointed out in the distance by Celica. There they find three hags, each with a different visage. One has no eyes but one tooth. Another has a large bulging eye but is toothless and her hair is falling out. The third only looks like
Edvard Munch's "The Scream" beneath her cowl.
The hags want to trade memories for information. Lyra plays a riddle game, wagering “the memory of her mother's face.” She is successful, and learns that evil beings known as “Arachnoids” are made by the warlock Sheol Arachnus who has captured the castaways.
The group of castaways travel to a mossy grotto where they descend into Arachnus' lair. They are attacked by a mix of spiders, razorbats, and cannibal Fungus Freaks. The heroes make short work of these inhuman monsters and burn away all the thick cobwebs hiding any more surprises.
The heroes find an altar dedicated to
Graeae. Celica recognizes the face on it as that of Ara Elmayar. They later learn that this alter is in fact the device used by Sheol Arachnus to communicate with the great hag.
Sheol Arachnus makes his presence known right in front of a one-way Voidspan gate right back to the Welmet! Four of the mighty Arachnoids hold the hallway against the heroes. The warlock Sheol Arachnus was planning an incursion of Arachnoids.
The Homeshard Heroes manage to defeat the Arachnoids with surprisingly little effort. Lyra casts a magic circle that traps the undead warlock Sheol Arachnus, rendering him inert for two hours.
The heroes take the altar dedicated to Graeae along with them back to the Welmet. They put it in a deserted vault for safekeeping.
After a few days, the Homeshard Heroes return to Arachnus' shard in force to crush him only to find the shard already deserted.