Choice

Two more days passed before Alice finally felt strong enough to slightly reduce her liver consumption, just the thought able to flood her brain with relief and endorphins.

The hectic hustle and bustle around the glade had slowly become a calculated work of paralyzing, infecting and harvesting cores, sometimes without the biomancer’s intervention and some other with a quick delve into the unfortunate creature’s immune system, shutting it off just enough for the Lumen to get to work on its biology.

Carefully guarded by a couple of gleaming guards, the precious cores had started slowly accumulating into a small heap, their number growing as the process became more streamlined and the specimens less picked by chance.

When she wasn’t surveying the process, Alice could be seen slowly and carefully regrowing the flesh of her arm, extending veins and nerves after checking that their corresponding neural connections hadn’t degraded or changed task over time. She had translated enough science articles on neuroplasticity to know that the younger the brain, the quicker it happened.

The third day was just starting when the girl finally sealed the skin around the tips of the ulna and the radius at wrist-height, a few tears of relief streaming down her cheeks as she looked at her pristine new forearm, its skin as soft as Ozren’s silk under her fingers.

It was inside of it, however, that her magic and progress had really shined.

After creating the basic protein scaffolding for her two bones, she had in fact proceeded to create an increasingly complex structure within the main branches of the would-be osseous matter, basically adding an almost fractal pattern of supports that would hopefully help the bone sustain heavier impacts without breaking.

Most of that design had been courtesy of the mole-rat incisors and bones, which had apparently evolved to sustain the impacts of predators or possible cave-ins as they dug into the stone.

After the calcium molecules had started melding to the proteins, however, Alice had made a last-moment decision to slightly thicken the two bones, further extending the structure by maybe one millimeter as not to warp the shape or appearance of her limb, but further reinforcing their general make-up.

As soon as the bones were accounted for, the young woman had then started working on the muscles that would cover them.

At first, she had decided to only repair the damaged tissue and then simply recreate the lost ones so as to not waste with useless experiments the nutrients so needed for her recovery.

As time passed and boredom set in, however, Alice had quickly changed her mind and started investigating and making changes to the thousands upon thousands of muscle fibers that formed her muscles.

When closely inspected, each one of those thin strands— a myocyte—was composed of dozens—or hundreds—of long proteins chains which, on an even smaller scale, were also formed by different sets of interconnected proteins that, by working together, allowed the fiber, and thus the muscle, to contract.

Normally, Alice would have been amazed by the recursive structure of her musculature and its infinitesimally tiny components; after observing Maath’s system of coiled muscles, however, she could only find her human one to be somewhat lacking.

That feeling was particularly true whenever she tried to compare the massive forces that could be exerted by the titanic spider’s specialized myocytes to her own underwhelming contractions. She definitely would need to do better.

After all, she thought, No pain, No gain. And I’m definitely well versed in the pain department.

A goal in mind, Alice had thus started looking for a few enhancements.

The first few trials resulted in failures.

Alice discovered almost immediately that copying the braided muscles of the Queen was a mistake since their shape, while incredibly powerful for a giant spider’s segmented limbs, was unable to exert the right kind of forces in her forearm and wouldn’t allow for most of the complex movements she would need for her fine control of the hand and fingers.

Not discouraged in the least, the eager biomancer instead decided to focus on the internal make-up of the fibers, observing the way they were intertwined and even trying to discover the differences between the Queen’s proteinic chains and her own.

After many long hours of careful meandering through Maath’s cells, Alice finally managed to create her own enhanced version of each one of the twenty different muscles of her right forearm.

While the muscles’ shape and size remained identical to the normal ones, the actual structure of their fibers, along with the internal composition of their proteinic chains, had been completely altered.

The normally homogeneous tissue was now subdivided into smaller threads of woven fibers, each able to not only exert a much larger amount of force with much reduced energy requirements, but also to grow far more quickly when exercised, enabling an easier muscle growth in exchange for a longer time to heal.

Which is not a very big issue since I’m back being a regeneration monster. she smiled to herself.

Those changes, while absolutely fantastic, hadn’t been the only ones.

If someone decided to inspect the internal structure of one of the newly-formed fibers, they would discover that each chain of proteins contained within had been carefully bound in a tight and responsive rope that could contract at a moment’s notice, basically creating an entirely new kind of corded myocyte.

The new changes to her musculature had also forced the girl to improve on the tendons connecting them to bone, basically increasing the strength and density of their mesh of connective tissue.

All in all, the changes proved to be a very successful endeavor that allowed her a far lower consumption of energy whenever she wanted to contract or relax a particular section and, while the efficiency on a single forearm was basically useless, Alice could already picture the amount of nutrients she could save when she implemented the changes on her entire body. She couldn’t wait.

Not everything, however, was as positive as the recreation of a part of her lost limb.

Over the course of her convalescence, the girl had had the time to think about her situation and the decisions she had taken in the previous weeks.

While some of her reactions had been over the top, exacerbated by the mood swings caused by the scurvy, she still felt that her decision to leave the Nest was a sound one.

After all, I’ve just seen the results of living underground. She told herself, looking at the almost invisible traces of the petechiae that had once covered her legs.

Even if one ignored the dangerous creatures she had encountered; Alice was simply lacking all those biological specializations that would allow her to survive underground.

Already she felt the need of many more kinds of vitamins, most of which were unable to be found or produced without sunlight and an omnivorous diet; on top of that, she had recently discovered—once again thanks to her Biomagical Instincts that her production of dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin—neurotransmitters involved in emotions and pleasure—had slowly started dwindling, the parts of the brain that normally produced them slowly deteriorating over time.

Her decision to run away and leave everything behind, however, wasn’t right.

Not after all the help the colony has offered me. she thought as she slowly approached the Queen, moving past the bound and paralyzed creatures in the glade.

The Spider Matriarch had just crawled out of her lair and was now resting after the strain, more blood and festering pus soaking the massive throne of silk; Alice still wasn’t sure why she elected to move every time but she had long since chosen not to take away Maath’s only chance of actually moving, her final bit of agency.

As soon as she saw her approaching, the ruler extended her leg towards her wire and started gently caressing it with the sharp side of the limb.

“Good Morning Alice, I see you have finally finished the first part of your own molting process. I am sure the rest of your feelers will soon follow.” Maath stated with a soft click that made a small, sad smile appear from the girl’s serious expression.

“Thank you Maath and yeah, I’ve also made a few modifications to make it stronger. Nevertheless, my arm is not really the reason I’ve come to talk today.” The young woman took a deep breath trying to ease the feeling of fear and anxiety that had nestled inside of her guts. She still feared the Queen’s reaction.

“You see, I’ve decided to leave the Nest after attempting to heal you, regardless of the results. I cannot live underground anymore, even if it’s safer in here with you. This life is only going to kill me slower overtime, no matter what I do.” She said, her voice faltering over her prepared speech as a ripple moved through the Queen’s exoskeleton.

Maath waited for a moment before speaking, her massive pedipalps twitching in the air as she thought.

“You will not find a way out, Alice.” she finally spoke with finality, “The caves are dangerous and you are not prepared. I wish you to remain here, to become stronger before you go away. If you manage to heal me I’ll personally bring you to the place with the sun and challenge the titans living there” she promised, the platinum of her carapace continuously twisting under the girl’s eyes.

Alice took another deep breath, her left hand grasping the middle of her forearm and pressing on her new muscles, feeling the heartbeat through her skin.

“Maybe you are right but I have to try anyway. I can’t stay here because it is literally killing me. I know you think I’m too reckless and weak to escape the caves but even the lack of light and the things I eat are dangerous for me Maath.” she said, her tone growing more desperate.

“Almost dying a couple of days ago? It’s because my body isn’t receiving the things it needs. I found a solution for that one but there are more. I’m dying Maath. Slowly and possibly painfully. Will you keep me here? I want to heal you, I really do, but you aren’t giving me many choices.” Alice said, the speech forgotten as her eyes filled with tears and her voice cracked under the flood of emotions.

Maath stared at her, her leg twitching on the wire before she lowered it on the ground, her pedipalps now completely still, opposed to the storm of silvery platinum that was her shell.

“You are a hatchling. Barely able to shoot your own silk.” She said.

“Maybe so… but I still need to do it. And you know it.” Alice sadly replied.

The Queen leg faltered once more before.

“It is so. I accept. I wish to be alone now. Ask Qhevi to bring me my meal.” a soft hiss escaping her mouth as her metal finally calmed down.

“Yes. I’ll do it.” the girl whispered as she wiped her eyes with her hand, moving out of the clearing.

One minute later, as a distracted biomancer walked through the middle of the crystalline forest, an unexpected click between the regrown metal trees almost caused her a heart attack.

When she whirled towards the source of the noise, Alice’s eyes instantly widened in surprise and she stood there, rooted to the spot, trying to decipher the scene she was witnessing as words failed to come out of her mouth.

“Does Maath know what you want to do?” she finally asked to the large female silently staring at her, surrounded by carefully embroidered webs depicting dozens of different images.

In response, a hiss echoed in the clearing.

“And you want me to help? You know I want to but that’s freaking crazy! It’s probably the best choice but how would we be able to do that?” she said, pointing at a specific image.

“I’d prefer not to die.” Alice stated dryly, staring in those eight silvery orbs.

Chillushrith stood up on her legs and moved aside, revealing another, larger web depicting a single object, an offer she couldn’t really say no to.

“You would bring me there? Do you want to help her so much?” she asked, her eyes still glued to the silk.

A harmonious melody of metal reverberated through the crystalline growths; a single click the reply she needed.

Alice smiled at the Thinker, already hearing Maath ranting at her afterwards.

“She will be freaking angry so make sure she doesn’t squish us when we come back okay?”.

*Click*

“You are not so bad after all, you know?”

*Hiss*

*****

This chapter is officially sponsored by Donny Blue! Thank you for your support!