Advancements

It took Alice a bit of time to recover from the surprise but, after a couple of minutes of sniffing, the girl brushed the tears away from her eyes and weakly smiled at the spiders standing awkwardly in front of her.

“Thank you. For real. I just hope I could pay you ba—” she interrupted herself, a sudden realization rushing through her mind.

“What if I could?” she murmured to herself before turning to Chillushrith, “Do you still want to lead me to the place with sunlight?” she now asked, her hand gripping tighter on the shaft of her new mace when she received an immediate click of assent.

“Okay then, I might be able to gift you knowledge from my world that might help your colony in the long run. The Golden Gate Bridge is nowhere near as cool as some of the other things my kind has managed to achieve,” she smiled to a practically vibrating Ozren, “The only thing I’ll need is a bit of your time,” she paused, feeling a gurgling sound coming from her extremely empty stomach, “and maybe a bit of food?” she added sheepishly.

The Thinkers’ reply was eager and unanimous, so much so that, less than an hour later, the young woman found herself sitting down on a hastily woven pile of silk in Skitter’s temporary resting place, busy munching on the remnants of a warm, bloody and not particularly pleasant chunk of mole rat liver.

The spiders, who had just finished butchering the hairless creature for her sake, proceeded to feast on the rest of the carcass, quickly using the digestive enzymes in their fangs to turn the flesh and other organs into a puddle of nutrients that they then proceeded to sip with gusto.

Alice had also used that small delay in her departure to further prepare herself for the journey, removing most of the glimmers contained within her body and having them feast on the bones and other remains of the unfortunate meal, slowly multiplying to replenish her numbers.

The girl swallowed the last piece of meat, casually using a small amount of Lumen glimmers to clean herself of the blood before finally speaking.

“I must warn you,” she started, “that of the things I’m trying to teach you, many I’ve only seen or briefly read about, you might need to experiment on the information I’ll give you before you actually manage to achieve your goal.”

She stopped for an instant, waiting for the clicks of assent from her strange students before continuing.

“Now, after living here for a month or so, I’d say that the main issue of the colony is its constant need for food. You are hunters, you go out and catch prey to sustain your offspring and expand further into the caves right?” she asked, nodding as soon as she got her answer from a confused Ricee, “As far as Maath has told me, your current tactic is to search for new hunting grounds, fight off the main hunters there and then harvest the prey living there without depleting their numbers.” She concluded before drinking a gulp of water from a metal bowl she had managed to acquire in the previous week; the water was a bit warm but it helped wash away the coppery taste of blood from her mouth.

“The problem is that the more hunting grounds you find to sustain yourselves, the more you need to grow in numbers to actually keep them within your control and, even then, the ones actually doing most of the work are the males since there are not enough powerful females to control each satellite nest. Your model seems to be quite similar to what humans like me did at the very start of our civilization. We have changed our ways quite a bit since then.”

“The more time you spend hunting, eating, and thinking about how to hunt and eat, the less time you have to advance and progress in other fields. You are an actually sapient species for fudge sake! It’s a big deal! In my world, there has only ever been one. Us. And we have managed to become so numerous that it’s actually impossible to picture in your mind. I’m sure you could do the same.” She ranted, stopping only when she realized she had probably lost them.

“You need to start farming the food you are going to eat. Humans only hunt a minuscule portion of their food. The rest is bred, killed, and harvested by the humans themselves.” She explained, seeing that she had once again obtained their interest, particularly that of Qhevi, with the tarantula-like female moving even closer to her sitting spot.

“You should catch a number of monsters that grow and breed very quickly, are easy to control, and tend to give a lot of nutrients without requiring a particularly specific diet, it would be best if they ate scraps or even one of the many molds and mushrooms I know Olush is cultivating. You should make sure to keep them fed and safe from other predators while they start to multiply. I know it might sound overwhelming but if you do that, you’ll soon be able to produce a portion of the food you consume, all by yourselves.” She promised to the pantry mistress before turning towards the hunched, spindly shape of Ricee, briefly wondering if she was creating more of a monster and then shrugging to herself and going forward with her explanation.

“The next important thing is a lot more difficult and concerns both the food you breed and your kind, at least if I go with Ricee… interests.” She hesitated, “My world has managed to create breeds of animals that are particularly useful for our use. Most of them wouldn’t survive in the wild without our help but they thrive in our safer environment.” The girl explained with a small grin, “Until we harvest them for their materials, obviously.” she added after a second.

“Let’s say you have a particularly strong male and he mates with a particularly strong female, it’s quite likely that the offspring will also be particularly strong once they grow up, possibly even stronger than their parents. Ricee, I’m sure you, in particular, will know what I’m talking about. This tendency is due to some information contained within our own bodies, it’s difficult to explain but this information is mixed during the breeding process and an offspring receives half of the male’s information and half of the female’s.

Thus, if we use this information with your newly captured monsters, you will be able to select those traits you prefer over and over again! You may want a prey that eats less but still grows fat or one that is bigger than the rest, more docile, the choices are many and they can be further improved with the future generations of prey and, like humans have managed to do, you will be able to create the perfect food for the masses.” She triumphantly exclaimed with her hand splayed wildly in the air.

“Just remember not to keep mating the offspring between themselves, it might damage them.

You have to keep a healthy pool of breeders to succeed.” She finally stated, taking a deep breath and drinking another gulp of water before looking around and finding every spider watching her in what she was pretty sure was astonished silence.

An instant later, Qhevi had rushed out of the hollow and had disappeared in the darkness.

Alice smiled and placed a hand on Skitter’s slightly molten carapace, briefly checking on his still-healing system before slowly tricking a steady flow of her warmth into his body, facilitating his cellular regeneration.

“Next, let us talk about farm design, fortification, and safety measures for the nest,” she said, watching Ozren, Khem, and Chillushrith’s palps start twitching expectantly.

Two days later, Alice walked silently beside Chillushrith, thinking about the colony she had probably left for the last time.

She had spent her last hours in company with Skitter and the Elder Thinkers, explaining, narrating, and describing as she had once done with their mother.

She had not gone back to the clearing in the inner nest, only sparing a last glance at the wide and pearlescent sails of silk that hid the crystal forest and the halls of the Spider Queen.

The young woman had also taken her time to prepare herself for her journey.

She had spent a number of hours working to reactivate her eyesight skill without the use of the shadow core as an aid.

Bending her own magic to behave similarly to the shadowy energy of the brood of the Soundless proved to be a surprisingly difficult process that required a few biological compromises but that ultimately saw her triumphantly activating the skill once again.

After that, she had mainly focused on filling up with precious nutrients and repairing the last injuries to her body. She was still slimmer than before, that was for sure, but her appearance was no longer that of an emaciated zombie.

She was already clad in the form-fitting, armored dress made by Ozren and Qhevi, its smooth and sturdy material able to bring a smile even on her slightly melancholic lips.

Even if I’m still going commando… Oh well.

In a sheathe on the bandolier on her chest was her new knife, which she had already managed to inaugurate on her own body when she had gingerly placed its unfathomably sharp obsidian blade on the fingertip of her index finger to test its edge, only to spend the next half an hour sealing the deep cut that her stupidity had earned her while listening to Skitter’s tittering sounds in the background.

At her side was her mace, newly modified and quite a lot lighter than before. Alice still wasn’t particularly sure what the addition of Eisor’s core would do to the weapon but she trusted in her ability to discover it by accident.

It will be like the sudden weapon upgrade in an anime. I just need to find my nemesis that I can’t beat normally and then use the power of family or something.

Her chuckle broke the silence and earned a low warning hiss from the huge spider by her side.

“It’s not like we are normally particularly silent, Eleanor.” She said with a grin, pointing at the sharp limbs of the spider sinking slightly in the tightly woven bridge that stretched over the huge chasm filled with water that split the caves in two. “Not when you walk on stone or anything that is not a carpet. So don’t hiss me,” she said, waving away the exasperated click that followed.

She took her time to observe the construction she was walking on, still unable to believe that a small group of spiders had created such an architectural marvel in around a week or so.

The silk she was walking on felt as solid as asphalt while the massive towers of rock that held the thick cables of the bridge stood unflinchingly under the strain, the limestone they had once been composed of, now feeling more like a very hard marble.

Soon, however, they left that too behind and Alice murmured an almost silent goodbye to the basaltic caves of the Spear Spiders, stepping once again into the wet limestone world of the upper caverns.

Her chitin-soled ‘shoes’ slipped slightly on the slick calcite covered in colorful growths but Alice simply pushed forward, adjusting the position of the silken rucksack hanging from her shoulder, lowering her center of gravity and keeping up with the pace of the far more comfortable Chillushrith with her spiked limbs.

As they walked, Alice lost herself in thought, thinking of what she was leaving behind and of her last goodbye before leaving for good.

“Hello, Skitter,” she had said as she sat down beside the young male, her hand on its carapace and already flooding his system with a steady flow of magic that was headed straight towards his healing flesh.

“I’m finally going away… I bet you’re going to be quite relieved not to have me around anymore but I kinda wish I’d had the time to heal you just a bit more…” she admitted, a small, sad smile blooming on her lips as she spoke.

“Nonetheless, I’m also very much sure that you’re going to be alright very soon. You’re far too petty and stubborn to just remain stuck in your condition for long.” She told him with a chuckle, ignoring the offended click that came from his fangs.

“In the same way, I’m also very sure that Maath will be giving you your name as a reward, just as you wanted, but you know what? I really don’t care, because to me you’ll always be Skitter.” Her smile immediately turning into a smug grin, “Even better if you don’t like it because I definitely haven’t forgotten you webbing me up the first time… and biting me… and stabbing me in the butt… mhhh… I honestly don’t know why I like you.” she admitted, her hand knocking lightly on his armored nape as she earnestly thought about all the things he had done.

“Aaaanyway, If we ever see each other again, I’m definitely paying you back for everything you’ve done so you better heal up fast. Ah… and one more thing that might interest you. There is an experimental weapon in my world that you might like… especially if you are able to have metal and electric powers at the same time…”

She was interrupted in the middle of her reminiscence when her normally silent guide suddenly stopped and clicked in her direction, one of her limbs pointing at the entrance of a side path that she had only briefly noticed when traveling towards the nest for the first time.

After a short, signed exchange, the two travelers decided to stop for a few hours just outside of the opening, sleeping only for the time that was strictly necessary before stepping into the unknown territory.

At first, the new tunnel wasn’t much different from the others they had traversed; it was made of yellowy limestone and covered in the usual colorful growths, a strong and not particularly pleasant smell of mold and decomposition filling her nostrils.

I’m glad I’ve yet to enhance my nose. she thought, Even though I’ll have to do it sooner or later. Maybe I could have spotted the Rocktopus if I had had it. Even heat vision would be fricking cool but I don’t have any idea where to start with that. She kept musing as she walked.

The more the two progressed, however, the more the environment changed, with the limestone of the floor gradually disappearing beneath a wet and muddy surface covered in a variety of spongy mushrooms that she squished under her feet with increasingly loud squelching sounds, shivering every time one of the countless displaced critters skittered over her feet in their mad rush away from the invader that was destroying their home, soon burrowing or hiding in the many other toadstools nearby.

The shape of the tunnel started changing as well, slowly growing wider as if the stone had been eroded by a constant flow of water or, more likely, by the slow grinding of countless roots burrowing in it.

Finally, after one more hour of walking in the mud, the tunnel finally opened up on a wide, open cavern filled with countless mushrooms of different sizes, with some as tall as Chillushrith herself, spongy behemoths of varying shapes and colors towering over their lesser kin, a few kinds even glowing in the darkness.

Completely stunned, the biomancer immediately reactivated her Eyes of the Eventide Hawk and stared at the numerous beings moving between the fungi, even spotting a few of the leechrats that seemed to have made the larger fungal caps their homes and hunting spots, constantly dropping on other unsuspecting prey beneath them.

On the other side of the smaller expanse, she could see a huge pile of rubble that laid on the far end of the cave, its algae-covered boulders constantly washed over by a steady, if calm, cascade of water that came from a large gash in the wall and then disappeared out of sight, hidden by the sprawling fungal forest.

Chillushrith suddenly stopped beside her and produced a soft hiss from her fanged maw.

Alice turned towards the spider just as it raised one of her platinum frontal legs, now dripping odorous mud, and pointed it at the distant opening in the wall.

“Are we here? Is this the place?” she asked, anxiety filling her chest.

Did they misunderstand?

She turned once more towards the pile of rubble, staring uncomprehendingly at the greenish stones covered in the almost fuzzy-looking aquatic plants.

Then it clicked.

Green Algae.

That means light.

*****

This chapter is officially sponsored by Elsie N.! Thank you for your support!