As the spiderlings emerge from the torn egg sac, messages ding inside my head, and a message that sounds pre-recorded. Also, it's the voice of the lady from the service window.

"Since you didn't select any starting equipment, you have three gifts choices remaining. Since you didn't select your other three gifts, they have been revoked. You have received all of your gifts."

... I'm not happy. Well, I am, but I'm not. It depends on what it is you're asking about, I guess. I should figure out who these bound souls are. I've lost so many that they could be anyone. I wonder how they'd feel reincarnating as spiders... There are a few of them that look different than I expected, which might already betray their identities. But what is up with that? I really didn't get any starting things that I could really use- like various household and agricultural tools, or medicine, or armor, or... too many things. Maybe grab a hold of a modern house and teach people about electricity, plumbing, and insulation? Assuming, of course, that those things aren't here. The lady did say that there isn't social justice or technology here, so I'm probably assuming right. Right?

Also, it was a trade-off I didn't get any say in. Starting equipment counts for a certain amount of gifts, but I don't know how many. Reincarnated people only get so many gifts to begin with. So, the maximum is ten. But I don't remember choosing any of the ones I got. Parthenogenesis, five Bound Souls, and that stupid Empathic Affliction. I have been thinking of the five arachnids I had as pets and miss, but is that them? But then if that's the case, I guess it means that I only had a certain amount of time to choose my gifts, and I didn't need to say it directly, or even to anyone? How could I know that? Plus, it isn't like there was a list or something, or... no one ever said life was fair. I guess my complaints are worthless at this point.

Maybe information will help me figure out the souls' identities. "Information bound soul."

Huh. Hopefully I'm the strongest, although I don't feel like I would be. My scorpion, Sting, was even what I'd call stronger than me. Run around with his claws, breaking the chitin of all the crickets in his cage, waiting for them to die, then eating them. I rarely saw him eat anything alive. Pretty passive and gentle otherwise, though. I even let him climb on my hands in front of my webcam when I was talking to someone in India- but the scorpions they have there are red instead of black, and are poisonous and aggressive. No wonder she was scared and thought I was in danger. Speaking of scorpions, guess what just came out from the egg sac?

I didn't choose a scorpion. I lack that ability. But here one is, a scorpion, black, just like all of the spiders... well, of the eleven... I don't like uneven numbers! I check the egg sac, but there aren't any more hatchlings. There are four hatchlings that stand out. There are a few wolf spiders and a few black widows, but I already know why. They belong to the two castes I made. Six of the spiders are wolves, three are widows, and one is a scorpion. That scorpion has GOT to be Sting. So, I name it that. I don't know what gender it is- I never learned how to figure it out with scorpions. Spiders are easy though. I only knew Sting was male because a pet store told me so.

They are so small! They're only about as big as my hand. I have to be careful when I bring heavy things into the cave and walk around now- I don't want to smoosh them. One of the two red wolves runs up to me, and I can hear tiny noises- thuds. It's stomping its feet while it moves towards me. I know who that is! I know exactly who that is! I'm so happy that I can't help myself and I pick up the spider in both hands and pet its abdomen with my cheek like I used to do. I pull it back and look at it. It puts its front right leg on the edge of my cheek where she can reach, and I know I was right. I make kissy noises and kissy lips at her, and put her down on the ground near the dead caterpillar.

Already I can see that the gross stuff covering the ground has grown what look like warts or something, and one appears near the destroyed egg sac. It bursts, and pus splatters over the silk. I watch it for awhile, making sure my children don't try to leave the cave. So far they're just in the chamber, eating. While I'm watching the pus start to look less liquidy and more... I think I know what this stuff is now. Maybe I should have figured it out sooner, but I didn't.

When I threw up because I overate, it had some of my own micro-organisms in it, I guess, and it made my Plague Bearer class ability kick in, which is how I got fungal superstructure- from the small mushrooms that I didn't notice until I looked. Then because of the superstructure and plague abilities, it absorbed the mammoth and scalewolf as it grew. It probably used the mammoth's meat to grow as far as it has. But it's also mushroom so that's probably why it hasn't grown out of the cave yet... maybe it can't? That is probably a good thing, though.

I look at where the fire pit was that I had started. The leaves and sticks are covered in coagulated yuck, making it look almost like the tree's bark that the caterpillar was eating. I guess building a firepit would be more difficult than I planned. I wonder if all of my body causes all of this, or only my puke? I did scratch myself next to the lake earlier, so I should probably go look. I carefully step around my children, who are now starting to explore the area and have lost interest in the caterpillar. I hear a ding in my head, but I look at what it is, and don't really care. I'm pretty sure I already know what its details are.

One of the spiders is following me. It's red. It's Djraine! She goes over to the mammoth's fully exposed tusk and starts playing with the skull by hiding in it. I guess she wasn't following, just going the same direction. That's fine. I get to where I had scratched off my itchy skin to molt, and I see it. It is drying out, and doesn't look like the stuff inside the cave. That's good at least. I don't want this stuff to grow forever. In fact, I should probably figure out how to stop it. There might be organic stuff I need, and I don't want it being eaten. By my house, which is also me. I guess that stuff is why I wasn't really hungry when I was standing on it. Wait, doesn't that mean that we don't really have to hunt? There's gotta be something having to do with the growth of that stuff and our own hunger. Maybe just not being connected physically means that... uh, I'll figure this out later. Right now, I wanna go see my babies!

...

After watching very closely, I've learned who is who.

-Aneis is a black widow architect. She stayed her same species and got the caste and class I wanted. Her webs, just like before, are all over the place and don't fit any kind of pattern. She keeps making webs around the main corridor/chamber doorway. What would be a doorway if there was a door.

-Djraine is a rose hair tarantula, but she isn't a dexxer or an architect. I guess she became the species I know her as, and got to choose her own class, or it was chosen by someone else like what happened to me.

-Sting is an emperor scorpion. He doesn't fit with the castes I thought up either, so I don't know what he can do- but he has run around attacking other bugs outside the cave in the same manner he did before. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have been sure.

-Malas isn't very smart in this life, either. He avoids most of the other spiders and keeps trying to 'hide' in the middle of the chamber. Sitting down doesn't make you invisibile, idiot. I'm actually surprised he even came with us.

Then there's the fifth one. I really should have named her, but I never did. I don't know her species name, but I knew it was some type of orb weaver. Red, yellow, white, and a little bit of a few shades of brown. A spider only as big as a fingernail, but with fifty foot long webs that appear in the middle of the night only. That spider I only recognized because of its colors. I couldn't choose that if I tried! Hopefully the spiders would become capable of speech and we could figure out a name together. Just like before, when I approached it, it paid no attention. When I started to touch the web it was making across the chamber, it went into a fearful frenzy, but my own calmness helped. After I picked it up and put it on my hand, it just sat down and was comfortable. Exactly like before. If you chase it, it freaks out. If you catch it, it calms down. I'll have to watch to make sure that if we interact with stuff, it doesn't get itself killed.

The other spiders seemed to just be wandering around finding outcroppings of rocks and investigating them or building webs between them. The animal bones weren't being absorbed, though, so we'd have to do something about that to keep the place from getting messy. Messier than it was already going to.