Midnight was one heck of a spidy sister. Unlike the two of them, Midnight was silver with bits of brownish spots on her, as if carved out of the finest marble there were. She was a foot or two smaller than them, but neither their shape nor even anything could daunt her.

She noticed their presence through the mental link as soon as they approached a hundred metres of her, however, she didn’t consider turning to them.

“Oh, it isn’t getting easier,” she said, looking at another pit full of spider webs hanging all around. This one was a lot less deep, only about half a mile, however, no one could literally die falling in it with how many webs spread all over there. There were many spiders too, smaller ones, juveniles, playing there, learning.

Midnight finally turned, giving the pit a last look. “There are a few trespassers who came into our home,” she said, “and from the way of things, they aren’t here with any good intentions.”

“We have more important news than that,” Elegy said, gesturing at Solidity. “Solidity, why don’t you say what you told me on the way?”

Solidity came forward, finding Midnight was staring at her with a few eyes. Among the stares of her colleagues, she announced, “Mother contacted me.”

“What?” Midnight asked as all eight of her eyes stared at Solidity now. “When was it? What Mother asks of you?”

It took a couple of seconds for Midnight to find out she was out of her line of composure. That was bad from what she had taught them. A superior should always show composure, even if she’s not composed.

Supposedly, this was their Mother's teaching. Solidity and Elegy were not taught by Mother. They were from the ninth generation, while Mother stopped teaching after the fifth generation. Midnight and Solace were the only ones remaining of the first five generations. As for others, they don’t talk about them.

Well, Solidity thinks they are dead. Even though they evolved into superior Empathic spiders, they couldn’t live more than a couple of centuries, and even if they did, there were always foreign threats that invaded their home on occasions, that lessened their numbers more than any natural cause.

“Well,” Elegy reminded.

“Yes,” Solidity said. “It was before I came here. I was on the southern side of the cavern on a trail of something fishy. When I found out, it turned out to be more peculiar than I assumed.”

“What is it?” Midnight stared at her, finding too much excitement in her tone.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I say it,” she said. “It's a small snake, barely at the copper rank, but it looked too much wrong from whichever way I looked at it. I had an entire conversation with it and found out it was probably one of the rare kinds of snakes out there. However, what was wrong with him was how he was brimming with negative emotions.”

“I’m sorry,” Elegy cut in, “but where’s Mother in this?”

“I’m sorry,” Solidity turned towards Elegy, “but if this conversation is boring to you, you can leave.”

Elegy chattered her teeth together in frustration at her.

“Stop that,” Midnight said, “Solidity, continue.”

“Yes, where was I? That snake—it told me its name and sounded too intelligent to be only a hatchling. Moreover, those emotions look wrong on him.”

“Him?” Midnight and Elegy asked at the same time.

“Yes,” Solidity continued, “I attacked it with some mental shrill after finding out it was making other male spiders go crazier than they already are. He stood against my attack for a few seconds and probably could endure more. Well, I might not be as good as Elegy at mental attack, but against a mere hatchling, I was more than enough. However, I learned something was wrong finding it knows how to prepare a defence against mental attack.”

“So, did you finish it?” Elegy asked.

“No,” Solidity said. “I was conversing with him when Mother contacted me. Mother told me to leave him be and finish all our business to enter the gate when it opens.”

“Is that all?”

“No,” Solidity said. “She told me about two other trespassers. She told us to leave them be, too.”

“Wait, two trespassers?” Midnight said, “but I found three, all of them are silver ranked.”

Solidity tilted his head.

“Perhaps--”

“No,” Midnight said, cutting off Elegy, “Mother doesn’t make mistakes, nor have I made a mistake here.”

“So, perhaps there were more trespassers than we found out,” Elegy said. “Solidity, did Mother say anything else?”

“No.”

The three exchanged looks as Midnight turned towards the pit where juveniles were playing. Elegy chattered with her teeth as she contemplated—one of her bad habits. Elegy couldn't stop that when she was frustrated. Where Solidity didn’t understand the severity of the situation.

Yes, Humans came to their homes mostly with bad intentions, however, there were still a few occasions where a few came with cordiality. There were even occasions, Solidity remembered, maybe like ten years ago, when someone even got a chance to meet with Mother. It was some queen of some nations that she forgot the name of.

Mother told her to leave the two trespassers, but Midnight didn’t find them at any roots in her search. Meanwhile, she did find another three whom she was sure weren’t here for any good intentions. Solidity had no clue what was going on with her home. And then there was that Snake.

“The time when the gate opens is still three-night ahead of us,” Midnight said. “So in that time, we’ll deal with the three silver ranker humans first."

Solidity and Elegy swallowed a breath. Well, they dealt with silver rankers before and won, but there was always a price to pay when dealing with silver rankers. There were three of them. Perhaps they will deal with them without paying too much of a price.

“I’m going with intimidation first,” Midnight said. Her tone in the telepathic link was not like she used to be. Before, it was like she was announcing it and there was no room for discussion, but now, she seemed to hold their opinion more. Perhaps it had something to do with them growing up, or perhaps how Mother cut herself off months ago. All in all, Midnight was not as confident as she used to be after she took in charge since Silence left.

“Elegy,” she said, “do you have anything to say?”

“I think it's better if we move for an attack first.” Elegy came forward. Of course, she had something to say—she would never miss a chance to impress Midnight if she could. And stating her opinion even if it was disapproving of their superior’s plan, she would say it, considering it was something Midnight always respected. “Intimidation barely works against humans, as our history shows. I say we hurt hard first and intimidate next.”

“That’s another way to do it,” Midnight said. “But you forget humans won’t stop there. If we manage to chase them away, they will come back with more numbers later. Humans never forget their grudges. It's as if grudges make them whole.”

“But if they come here for nothing good, intimidation will do little good, too.” Elegy couldn't really believe Silver rankers would be intimidated that easily.

“It will make them alert,” Solidity said, “which will make our task harder.”

Midnight seemed to agree with her. “That’s why we're going to do both at the same time.” She considered for a moment and announced. “Elegy, you’ll contact them with telepathy where I and Solidity will prepare the attack. Solidity, go find Solace first. You need to tell her what Mother asks of us.”

______________

Reviews of ratings are an enormous help in the first month of the book on this site. Well, mostly positive ones. Still, speak your mind. Tell me what is good about this and what's bad. I'll try to make it better.