Isla woke up from her meditation to find Zael returned, finishing the scouting job. He was sitting across from her, leaning against the rocky wall. The log fire provided enough light for him to see her, but he kept on staring at her. Probably to find out if her state has gotten better or not.

This was the problem with an elf companion. They were damn good at finding out if anything was wrong with someone’s health—sometimes it was just by listening to their breathing and the change of colour of their skin.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Better,” Isla answered.

Zael was a tall fellow with a fairly muscular build that went against determining he was a healer. Well, mostly a healer. Other than the golden hair and long pointy ears that stood out, he had a strong jawline and kind blue eyes. Bits of a beard grew on his chin that he didn't have time to take care of in the last couple of weeks. While his face was a bit pale and reddish with exhaustion.

A few days ago, both of them had been afflicted with poison, dining in an inn. Turns out, the men after them had ticked the staff at the inn and made them consume poison. However, their plan didn’t go as planned, with Zael being an expert healer in the Silver ranks.

There were very few poisons in the world that could affect a silver ranker, and Zael, an expert on that, found out about the poison rather quickly. His purification spell worked wonders on himself. However, Isla's affliction was not something Zael could heal in the short term. With her being an Iron ranker, the situation degraded even more.

It only got better after they escaped from the mercenary men’s pursuit, and Zael finally got time to work his expertise on her.

Yes, the poison was still in her system, but she felt better after a long time. She had to thank Zael for that. Without his purification spells and hand in brewing medicine, it wouldn’t be so easy. Considering that, any normal Iron ranker might have died within a few minutes after being affected by such poison. Supposedly, the poison was from Gold-ranked Phantom Toad whose poison might not be the strongest, but almost the most effective to render all spirit abilities useless. If it had gotten to Zael, then they were done.

“Did you find anything scouting?” Isla asked.

Zael shook his head. “Nothing in particular,” he said, “but I came across the spiders. There’s something very much wrong with them.”

“The specific?” Isla asked.

“I’m not sure,” Zael answered. “They were murderous and crazy. Even the other monsters I met were like that. I don’t think it's anything small. Whatever it is, it should be at the core of this dungeon.”

Isla nodded as she got lost in her thoughts. That was exactly their task, which was to find out what was wrong here. Hanbad Rainforest was a broad territory spread across tens of thousands of square miles. It took over a month for them to get here, not to mention what kind of trouble they got themselves into for this.

Zael literally had to fight his family to leave home just to come with her. She was grateful to him for that. Most elves had left their paradise after several problems, but they were still conservative with their ways.

“What do you intend to do about Gavin?” Zael asked with some hesitation.

“What about him?”

“Gavin,” Zael reminded her, “he’s probably in terrible shape, worse than us.”

“What’s the point?”

“You know the point.” Zael gave her that look that told her she could be better than this. Isla hated that look.

“I didn’t drag him here,” she said. “He came here on his own.”

“And that pissed you off,” Zael sighed, shaking his head, “come on, Isla. He’s your brother.”

“No,” Isla said without hesitation, “he’s not.”

“Really? Are you saying this?”

Isla grunted and stood up. “I don’t have time to think about him now,” she said, pacing in the space. “But our problems intertwined together, so perhaps we’ll come into a situation that would let us save that sorry ass of his. We'll save him and we'll carry his sorry ass in a bucket, then he'll leave me alone to deal with my thing.”

Zael gave her a look as his lips curved up into a smug.

“Lose that smile, Zael. That doesn't look good on you.”

. . .

Solidity moved, working her eight legs in synchronisation, moving as fast as she could. She shot a large string of cobwebs on the wall to climb up from the pit, swinging in the air and then soaring.

She had to shoot more string of cobwebs to climb up the pit, ‘cause it's too damn high to climb up in one or two string shots. It needs more than half a dozen times. Only her associate sisters could do that, leaving their chaotic male siblings out of this channel, mostly.

“You’re late,” a voice said in her head as Solidity landed next to another spider as huge as her. The other one was like her, six feet tall, shaded in a brown with eight legs, looking as fine as if they were carved from obsidian. Elegy was her name and was born in the same generation as her, though she seemed to want to outlive herself, stating stupid things like every moment matters and whatnot.

“By twelve minutes,” Elegy said, checking the watch wrapped on the second leg on the right side. It was something she got from their previous superior a long time ago when she was young for her bravery in stopping a few humans from breaking into their home.

“You’re clinging to human belongings a little too much,” Solidity said. “Perhaps it will be soon when you’ll ask to leave home, too, just like how Silence did.”

Elegy showed no interest or even a rebuttal in her accusal. “You’re saying that to change the topic of your misconduct,” she told Solidity. “Sadly, you forgot, I didn’t fall for your false accusation for months.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Solidity snickered, “I got hold of something interesting. You wouldn’t believe me if I didn’t show it to you. I almost regret leaving it for this.”

“No, you just wanted to rub it on me,” Elegy said in a level tone. Well, as if her tone had never been level before. “Say that to Midnight if you dare.”

Solidity expressed a grunt through the telepathic link. “What’s the situation?”

“Let’s go, Midnight is waiting,” Elegy said as she started moving.

Solidity groaned telepathically to Elegy as she followed. She didn’t need to do that, but it was always fun to remind her always tidy sister. To which her tidy sister didn’t react, of course. However, Solidity had something that would interest this indifferent sister of hers. Well, truth be told, it would rattle her good.

“I got an order from Mother,” she added, snickering to herself.

Elegy stopped on her track and turned. “You’re joking.”

“I don’t joke about Mother,” Solidity said sternly.

“You? Of all people, why would Mother even contact you?” Elegy stirred with disbelief.

Solidity gloated inside, but showed a look that it didn’t matter. “The important thing is that Mother didn’t contact you.”

Yes, that’s what's important. Elegy was trying everything to get to their Mother, who hadn’t talked or even showed a single sign to any one of them for months. Something was wrong with their home and they were barely noticing it now, however, their mother should have seen it coming since long ago. Of course, the reason Elegy wanted to contact their Mother was not just to know what was going on with their home.

Knowing her, Elegy probably wanted to abdicate some rules that seemed stupid to her or implement more to make the workflow better. It wasn't easy for her to believe what Solidity said now. Well, she was baffled to find that the most irresponsible of their ranks would get an order from Mother.

Solidity moved, gloating, leaving Elegy with her mouth hung open.

“Even if Mother contacted you,” Elegy said, joining beside her, “it should be to penalise you for all your faults and misconduct.”

“Nope,” Solidity said, and didn’t open her mouth to any question of Elegy. Their mother rarely punishes them for misconduct. As long as it stayed within the boundary of their duty, she just reminded them of what they did and left them suffocating on their own guilt. However, all of that changed after Silence left.

Still, Solidity was jolting with excitement after finally getting some acknowledgement from their mother. Well, maybe a bit of excitement came from Elegy's frustration. Nope, a lot from my dear sister's misery.

Her tidy sister might be screaming inside to know what their Mother entrusted her with. She wished she could experience it through their mental link. However, of all things, Elegy was never sloppy in her skills. Well, Empathic defence was her forte. Well, I guess, I'm happy just with her frustration showing on the outside.