I learn why when she suddenly folds her leg beneath her abdomen. I have a moment of realization before she lowers her entire body onto me in an effort to crush me alive. Her children are replaceable, but my death needs to happen. I only barely have time to raise my tentacles to shield me before the roof falls fully and I’m smothered by the white.

But I don’t die. By wrapping my tentacles around me to form a ball, I survive.

And she has just given me prime access to her abdomen.

I rip off the surface layer of mould, tossing it into my mouth as I expose the black carapace. Prime for eating. I dig in.

I’m not sure if she can feel this at all, but I crack open her carapace and emerge into her fleshy interior, where I spread my arms wide, my wounds and tentacles fully healed once more. About half of her flesh is the mycorrhiza of the mould, and I eat it all the same. Her body shivers and moves but I eat and I eat until her abdomen is nothing but an empty husk. Then, perfectly confident that she was well and truly dead, I emerge from the top of her abdomen.

I hop down from her hollow shell of a body. Our eyes meet. Her body is surrounded by destroyed eggs.

She reaches out towards me, her leg quivering.

I bite her leg. She dies.

...Fantastic!

But I still haven’t eaten her fully, so… Before I eat the crystal, my beloved dessert, I’ll just finish eating her. Am I being cruel? I don’t think I’m being cruel. She attacked first, right? Ah, then again, I did eat her children and her crystal. Then again again, I don’t really care! Bottoms up, spider!

Her inside was mushy and her outside was crunchy. 3/10, could have better inside texture.

947 -> 1 447

...Well, that’s just ridiculous, isn’t it? I mean-, she’s just a really big spider. And I haven’t even eaten the crystal yet! Or the mould in here, for that matter!

Actually, I want to eat the mould before I eat the crystal. Just to cover all bases, you know?

I’ve been saving the best for last all my years and I’m not about to stop now!

1 447 -> 1 600

I’m starting to wonder how I can possibly fit all of this sheer mass into my body. It’s kind of really stupid. That big spider was like twenty times my own size! This is physically impossible. I’m going to go complain to the manager!

-Oh! But, first! I’ve got a crystal to eat, hehehe!

Apparently, I was able to crack it off, but not eat it. C'mere, baby!

Crunch!

1 600 -> 3 200

...That is ridiculous. I can’t even fathom how many points that is.

-But, with the crystal consumed, this does mean that there’s nothing left for me in this cave. It’s time. I’m a little scared, but I’m also equally excited.

I leave the chamber, go through the hallway, crawl through the crevice and emerge into the main cave. And only then do I realize that I have forgotten completely that I was at a fork in the road. Even worse, I forgot which way was which.

Uh. Genuine question, did I come from the left or the right?...

I’m serious. The crevice is literally just a hole in the wall.

You know what? I’m going to the right. I don’t know what that means, but I’m going there. Hopefully, this’ll let me escape.

...Four hours later and I must now come to the solemn realization that I’ve gone the wrong way. Heck.

And since I’m way too impatient to just keep going or to just go straight back, I’ve decided that the best course of action is to escape by eating my way straight through the wall. It was a pretty fun idea at first, but then I realized that eating rock is almost exactly as tedious as walking through endless cave tunnels, but it’s fine. This is fine. Eating rock is fun!

I lie. It’s boring.

But, after a mere six hours, I emerge! Freedom!!

It seriously feels like digging my way out of my own grave, but here I am. On the surface of this stupid-ass asteroid, ready to use all my points for something stupid. Ooookay, let’s see here. I wanna get big. See, if I’m really big, I don’t have to eat bugs, cuz I can just eat asteroids! Which… Sounds like the dream. I think.

My line of thinking is: if I’m too big to eat, I’m too eat to big. Yeah? Yeah.

Okay, so, first up, I’d like to increase my design. Just being psychically bigger is boring, so… I’ve got five primary tentacles right now, so I’ll make it seven because I like having that kind of symmetry.

3 200 -> 3 146

Two more tentacles grow, exactly alike my other five. Now I’ve got my bases.

I think, kind of like last time, I’ll just sort of improve on my prior design. See, at the moment, each of my tentacles has one core that sprouts three smaller tentacles. I’d like to add mouths and cores to these smaller ones, at the same time stretching them out to make them longer. And maybe add pairs of tentacles on each base, between the older and newer core?

Yes, that seems like a good idea. Probably. And then we’ll put two tentacles atop the new cores, each branching into two smaller ones to act as gripping hands.

In total, I’ll have to grow 18 new tentacles for each primary, alongside three extra eyes and three mouths.

...Wack!

Okay, so, for all seven tentacles, that’ll be…

3 146 -> 2 852

Why, thank you, that was just what I-,

Each of my seven tentacles erupts in activity, lengthening, sprouting mouths and eyes and tentacles.

-Eye-Mouth formations discovered. Add separate consciousnesses? Cost: 210 (you have 2 852)-

Oho, yes, certainly! Considering what happened down there, I’m starting to think that the more of these that I have, the better.

2 852 -> 2 642

...That leaves me with the real deal here. Namely, size. I’d honestly like to increase it as much as I can? The bigger, the better and all that.

Let’s see here…

2 642

Size: 4

Cores: 29

Tentacles: 196

Eyes: 42

Mouths: 29

Carnivorous

Gastrolithic

Fungivorus

Increase

Regeneration

Immunity

Okay, yeah, very cool!

Now then, size. Let’s increase it.

Increase Size? Cost: 100 (you have 2 642)

Uhhh, what does the one after this one cost?

Increase Size? Cost: 350 (you have 2 642)

And the next one?

Increase Size? Cost: 700 (you have 2 642)

...Yes?

Increase Size? Cost: 1 050 (you have 2 642)

Right. Hold on, let me think about the math here. Uhhhhhhhhhh…

Yeaup. Do it.

2 642 -> 442

...I mean, yeah, that wasn’t in my calculations because I did no calculations, but even then I feel like I did my calculations wrong. Maybe I should have saved up for-,

-Whuup!!