Preparations

The small human walked silently beside Chillushrith as they moved past the large soldier spiders guarding the black, square gate that led out of the Main Nest.

“Are you absolutely sure about this plan?” Alice suddenly asked, turning towards her.

The Thinker shot her a glance with a couple of her eyes, studying the strange, unfathomable expression on that smooth pink face for a few seconds before replying with a short click of assent.

She had to repress the hiss of annoyance that desired to escape her throat.

It was obvious they had thought about the plan, they had pretty much only done that for entire days.

Ever since they had decided to act, Eisor, Skitter, Ricee and her had spent entire cycles of rest trying to preemptively solve all those issues that would appear the moment their rushed expedition departed from the Nest.

Between keeping the colony fed, protected and well-administrated, the amount of work that was required was nothing short of titanic; just the task of finding a temporary replacement for the role of overseer had taken Eisor an entire cycle to finally resolve.

In the end, it had been decided that most of the workload would be shouldered by a very displeased Qhevi, who, together with that recluse that was Olush, would be the only Elder Thinker remaining in the nest.

Not only would the stocky tarantula have to fulfill her role of Pantry Mistress, but also take upon herself the gargantuan task of defending the Nest and overseeing the many swarms that continuously came and went through the main route. Chillushrith didn’t envy her.

Thankfully, they had somehow managed to obtain Olush’s interest in leading the core harvesting efforts, at least after telling her of the glowing substance that seemed able to do so much to a living body. She just hoped it was a good idea and that it wouldn’t come back to bite them in the spinnerets like a centipede whose head hadn’t been properly crushed.

Finally, the rest of the minor and secondary tasks would instead be supervised by their younger sisters, inexperienced but eager to find their spot in the colony.

After the Nest’s organization had been deemed sufficient, the rest of the time had been spent deciding how many resources they could spare to lose; failure was still a possibility and they couldn’t allow their species to fall.

In the end, despite their fears of further weakening the colony, they had elected to utilize most of their experienced fighters in the hope of minimizing their losses, only leaving a number of guards to protect the Queen for any potential assault from invading enemies.

After that decision, Chillushrith had then spent most of her time training those few clusters she had already decided to bring with her on their quest.

While some of their members were veterans that had fought for the colony for countless molts, most of the remaining troops were not much more than inexperienced hatchlings, born after the last of the larger expeditions and more used to territorial scuffles than actual conquest.

She had thus spent most of her time drilling a number of tactics she had learned or created over her many battles, hoping that they would raise their chances of success in future fights.

When she was finally done, the gleaming spider tiredly ambled towards her cave, ready for the first cycle of actual rest since Skitter’s reveal.

Therefore, it was with great displeasure that she saw the three conniving kindred waiting for her in her normally safe haven, joyously conspiring between themselves.

But why me? she had hissed at the culprits, the smallest one trying very hard—and failing—to stop his pedipalps from twitching as Eisor told her that, between all of them, she would be the one to finally ask Alice to join them.

Because you are the one that actually knows the place Alice so desires to reach, and you have always been the one to command an expedition if Mother wasn’t present, thus it is indeed your duty to obtain its most important members, had promptly answered Eisor with a few satisfied clicks, and since I’ve been forced to join this sorry, last-meal betrayal of Mother’s trust I’ll at least enjoy your discomfort. She had continued before ambling out of the cave, ignoring the annoyed hiss erupting from behind her abdomen.

And it’s pretty damn funny, If you ask me! had added a clicking and tittering Ricee before dodging a large glob of silk directed towards her face and rushing out of the cave.

And you? Aren’t you also here to chitter at my expense, little one? she had hissed at the last unwanted guest in her den.

Yes he had readily replied with a click of amusement before dodging yet another glob of silk the much larger female angrily threw at him.

But also for knowledge. He had continued, Alice will not understand clicks and hisses, and signs take too long. You will want to use webs to create images. He calmly explained, watching her with his seven unblinking eyes.

Enjoy the stupid twolegs he finally tittered before plinking away, leaving her pondering alone in the dark.

A few hours later, Chillushrith, Elder Thinker, veteran of thousands of battles and the closest thing to a general the colony had available, found herself carefully embroidering a number of webs for the damned human that had caused her so many annoyances and, at the same time, given her so much hope and relief.

As soon as everything had been completed, the large female had set out to wait in the crystal forest, maybe rest a bit before thinking of a way to get the human’s attention without incurring in Mother’s scrutiny. She was therefore extremely surprised when she spotted the tiny biped ambling through the forest, slowly moving away from the clearing with her strange gait.

While unable to think of a reason for that behavior, Chillushrith had simply decided to gracefully accept the boon fate had offered and immediately set out to explain her request to the glowing twolegs.

All in all—and to her surprise—the actual conversation had been the least annoying of her tasks and, upon understanding her offer, Alice had almost immediately agreed.

“Hey? Can you hear me? Are you totally certain about this plan?” she asked again.

And now, Alice has apparently decided to ruin my cycle with more prodding questions, she thought, mentally cursing Eisor and Ricee with their ‘diplomatic’ approach.

Had it been her decision, she would have simply webbed up the human in a nice and tight bundle and they would have already been halfway to the objective.

Despite her annoyance and abrasiveness, however, deep inside, the gleaming behemoth knew that Alice’s fears were understandable. After all, she had been there to listen to her tale of displacement and survival, and just the thought of finding herself suddenly away from the colony was scary, let alone doing so when barely larger than a hatchling and just as weak.

Even if Mother didn’t seem to understand that you can find yourself in a place that is not made for your body, she did. The large Thinker had once seen inside one of those rifts in the air and she had instantly been sure that she wouldn’t last a single molt if she found herself in that place.

Thus, she only clicked in assent when Alice finally got the courage to ask the real question she had wanted to pose, the five tendrils at the end of her healthy limb gripping hard the ending of the still incomplete one.

“Can you really bring me there? Where you saw the plants?” she murmured as Chillushrith’s mind returned to the place she had only seen once and so many molts before, so strange and alien to her eyes.

She clicked again. She could do that; and maybe there, the human would have a chance of surviving.

Probably not.

She can do it. She knows where it is. The final confirmation finally let a wave of relief flood Alice’s body, a warmth of endorphins coursing through her veins, whispering that everything would be alright. She let herself bask in that delicious glow for just a few moments before shaking herself from her stupor and focusing on the task at hand.

“How long do I have before we move? I wanted to try and regrow my hand and I also need equipment if I want to stay alive,” she watched her almost completely naked body, barely covered by the thin, silken blanket she had obtained after her outfit had been shredded, “clothes at the very least,” she added while blushing furiously.

A clicking chitter was her answer, coming from yet another member of the expedition, waiting for them in the large cave they had just walked in, his thin and sharp spike immediately pointing at a small burrow built against a wall.

Alice stared at Skitter before chuckling softly, “I knew you would fit right into this sort of things.” she murmured before glancing again at the mass of webs he was pointing at, “a nest? Burrow? Where you sleep… ah, one night? Tomorrow? Okay, I might be able to work with that.” She stated as she headed towards the pile of woven silk and let herself fall on it, the taut and flexible material keeping her away from the hard ground as she sank into her own body.

“I’m gonna start right away. I’ll probably also need to fill up on Lumen particles. Just in case” she finally told the staring arachnids just before resuming the scary and difficult work that was recreating a limb.

As soon as she was within her own living flesh, the young Biomancer of Symbiosis made a thorough check of her resources, something she had started to regularly do after almost dying because she was lacking a single one of them.

While an actual head count was currently impossible with her powers as they were, she had nonetheless found a way to solve the issue by looking into the actual signs her body was giving; whether it was a wound healing slower, cells requiring more oxygen or nerves discharging slowly, Alice would immediately investigate on those symptoms to find the underlying cause. No longer would she let herself waste away without doing everything in her power to prevent it.

A few minutes later, after confirming that pretty much every bodily function was working as intended and that her well of power was full to the brim, Alice finally jumped into one of the main brachial nerves and rushed along the electrical impulses of her brain to reach first the arm and then the forearm, only stopping when she arrived at her destination, where her wrist would soon be.

Before she could start working on the extremely complex structure of bones and articulations she had been dreading to tackle, the girl found herself lacking some of the instruments she would normally have available.

This always happens when you leave home on a holiday, you get to the new house and the light switches are in another place, the knives are blunt and your toilet seat wiggles under your butt.

Chuckling a bit at the silly thoughts, she proceeded to correct her lack of proper tools with some biomagical shortcuts.

First thing first, the young woman sent a few impulses to her stomach, once again forming a connection to the Lumen globules held there and directing them to consume all the contents of her digestive system. Once done, she directed the increased number of glimmers into the esophagus and to her throat, trying to ignore the painful, vomit-like feeling that her actions caused.

She sighed in relief when the last handful of glowing slime had left her lips and coated and sterilized the residual limb.

Next, given the lack of a scalpel in her vicinity, she had to find a way to cut her skin open.

At first, she considered asking Chillushrith for help but she soon rejected that option after remembering the way her massive blades had brutally cut through stone, chitin and flesh alike. She didn’t want to risk yet another amputation when she could think of a better solution.

In the end, she solved her issue by literally causing the apoptosis of a sliver of cells of the dermis, expertly cutting into her skin without any implement, the tissue simply turning into a pinkish goop that was easily eaten away by the glowing mucilage.

The major veins and arteries already sealed to prevent blood loss; Alice finally got to work.

She commenced by rebuilding the eight, short bones of the wrist, each of them a very compact and specific shape she had to copy from its twin in her left hand.

The process she used was the same one she had employed when rebuilding her ulna and radius; she would create a complex structure of flexible and sticky proteins and then liberate the calcium that the rest of her bones had carefully stored over time, sending it through her system in order to strengthen that particular scaffolding.

This time, however, she had decided to immediately apply the structural changes she had designed after inspecting the mole-rat bones; the new, almost fractal design was able to lessen the damage caused by any impact against the osseus tissue.

Despite knowing that the strengthening process would take a lot more time and that her bones would be weaker until it finished, Alice also understood that the improvement was too useful not to risk a bit more to obtain it.

Nonetheless, if she hoped to enhance each bone in a timely manner, she would probably have to start grinding up and eating some actual bones to obtain enough calcium for her use, even with the reserves she had built throughout her life by drinking only mineral-rich water.

As soon as the first couple of bones had been completed, Alice carefully built the cartilaginous layer inside of each joint, sealing each bone end with a thin membrane that would soon fill up with a clear and sticky fluid, useful to prevent attrition between the bones. When the joints had been completed, the girl immediately enveloped the entire system in a thick layer of glimmers that would not only keep the bone protected, but also in place while she worked on the fingers.

Many hours later, a weary Alice finally opened her eyes once again and carefully raised the skeletal hand weakly attached to her wrist; nineteen more bones had joined the previous eight, built almost out of thin air by the invisible and tireless workers that inhabited the human woman’s body. She had to resist moving the extremely fragile appendage. She knew her work had just started.

She looked away from the spooky and wondrous spectacle to get the attention of any of the Spear Spiders currently walking through the space but, when she tried to call one of them over, she discovered that, as she worked, her throat and tongue had turned into an arid desert lacking any kind of moisture.

A small metal container filled with water laid near her resting spot and she immediately launched herself on the salvific fluid, letting it course down her throat like a flood of liquid light as the many Lumen glimmers, stirred from their stasis, shone their bright, green luminescence.

“Never been happier to live with giant sentient monsters.” She finally stated with a contented sigh before finally managing to get Skitter’s attention.

“Could you weave a line of silk for me?” she immediately asked as soon as the smaller male had approached, “I need it to remain connected to your body as I work, otherwise I believe I won’t be able to inspect it.” she continued, trying to ignore the exasperated clicking coming from his pedipalps; the idea that had come to her mind was simply too good to ignore.

“Please?” she pleaded, her two eyes glued to his seven until he finally relented and turned around, showing his abdomen and spinnerets.

Before she could thank him, however, a thin and sticky thread had already been woven and thrown at her face, sticking to her forehead like a suction cup bullet thrown by a child. Alice sighed as the male Thinker tittered at her, enjoying his prank, “you are such a petty creature, Skitter” she muttered as she delved into the thread, not even bothering to pull it off.

To her joy and relief, she immediately discovered that she could establish a weak connection to the silk that was still connected to the spider, something she had already witnessed with her own hair; apparently her powers worked as long as the body counted the material as living or connected to a living being.

In itself, the thread under her eyes was quite simple, a collection of stretched proteinic chains that gently winded around each other to form a slightly loose cable; its actual composition, however, was what actually interested her.

Within a few more hours, she had carefully learnt the composition of a single molecular chain and, after confirming its incredible strength and flexibility, she had started applying that knowledge to the creation of the complex ligaments that would keep her bones in their place.

In the end, under her excited but careful gaze, a new, enhanced version of her connective tissue had formed on her bones, able to withstand much higher strains without snapping.

After that, recreating the muscles, and extending nerves and veins was only a matter of time.

An unknown amount of hours later, Alice silently stared at the flesh-covered hand in front of her eyes, feeling the bones and ligaments move underneath her skin, sensing the way her improved muscles rippled at her every signal, sometimes twitching as her brain started utilizing anew those previously lost connections.

Alice smiled, tears streaming freely down her face, unable to even talk as her body was wracked by uncontrollable sobs. She had a hand once again. She was whole anew.

*****

This chapter is officially sponsored by Fiddle Sticks! Thank you for your support!