Djraine woke me up, worried about something by the sound of her voice. "Parent?" she began to ask me. "Something is wrong."

The dinging in my head made it hard to listen to her, but it wasn't so distracting as to be impossible to ignore. Death had cured my tinnitus, but living with it as long as I did in my first life, I got used to annoying noises corrupting everything everyone said and got through it.

Aneis, who was resting on one side of the den, wasn't pale as she was before. Instead, she was this... bruised shade of purple and red all over, but it was most apparent near her neck, where the thing that used to be a little kid had bitten her. No! Was it transmissible? It did seem that way initially...

Behind where I was, there was a new eggsac! Just like before, I couldn't actually tell how many spiderlings might hatch from it. Was this what the ding was bothering me about? Some sort of overload and new babies? I was distracted. Aneis really didn't look good. Looking at it, my own nub didn't look very good, either. That ding was really getting annoying, so I might as well look at it or I won't be able to help anyone.

Skill Acquired: Light of the Ordained

Ostentatious! Was that the ability I got from that monster woman?

Information: Light of the Ordained. A viral-based cancer that activates and exaggerates any repressed genes that any species the user interacted with might have had.

Eleven aspects maximum. Please reduce aspects by disseminating aspects into traits.

Current aspects list:

Human

Black Widow

Wolf Spider

Wooly Mammoth

"Scalewolf"

Rose Hair Tarantula

"Giant Caterpillar"

"Scary"

Jumi

Emperor Scorpion

Trapdoor Hermit Spider

Funnel Web Hermit Spider

"Red Spider"

"Yellow Bird"

"@o^o.adyCarnelian"

"Disseminate human." That might be interesting. However, thinking that didn't seem to do anything. "Disseminate aspect human." I waited, but nope. "Acquire trait from aspect human?"

"Which trait do you wish to acquire?"

Ha! There it is. "What traits are available?"

Nothing. No response again. Stupid thing! I really didn't like this hit-or-miss interface, even if it was created in the afterlife, it didn't count as transcendant. "Trait list human." Still nothing? "Acquire trait from aspect human."

"Which trait do you wish to acquire?"

"The hands." I don't know if it worked, but I heard nothing. Okay that probably meant a fail again! "Articulated hands."

"Acquisition of this trait will sacrifice the human aspect. Accept?"

Did this mean my children from now on would be stupid? Were the aspects I had in the list to begin with giving passive abilities? I had no idea, and the psychic computer voice was not helpful enough for me to trust asking it. 'Screw it', I thought. Luckily, before it was too late I realized there was a slightly smarter choice. "No. Acquire trait from aspect human. Humanoid."

Trait acquired: Humanoid

I mentally clicked on the popup so it wouldn't beep at me, and continued slicing up my aspects until they were only traits.

Trait acquired: Gothic

Trait acquired: Arachnida

Trait acquired: Endoskeleton

Trait acquired: Pack Animal

Trait acquired: Silk Production

Trait acquired: Metamorphic Cocoon

Trait acquired: Hardened Exoskeleton

Trait acquired: Jumi Language

Trait acquired: Grip Strength

Trait acquired: Spiderweb Observation

Trait acquired: Xenophobia

Trait acquired: Red Spider Venom

Trait acquired: Friendly

I didn't even know what those last two were, so it wasn't like I could say what trait I wanted from them. How could I? You can't say what you like about a food if you don't even know what it's name is. 'Hey, what do you like about the meal on the table?' 'What table?' 'Well, there is a table somewhere, and I know about it, and I know about the meal on it. So what do you like about it?' That's how that conversation would go.

"Aneis? What's going on? Tell me what's going on with you." I know it was a dumb thing to say as soon as I said it. I wasn't a doctor though, what did I know?

"It hurts. I don't know what to do."

"Let me try something."

I had a thought, and hopefully that would do it. "Use Plague Bearer on Aspect 1." Nothing happened, so I tried thinking different words. "Use Plague Bearer on all Aspects." I didn't hear anything.

"I'm going to go to the jumi village and try to see if they know anything about this. There's that one nice lady with the herbs, you remember her? She likes you, maybe she'll help." I turned to Djraine. "The eggs will hatch, but I don't know when. Can you take care of them if they hatch before I get back?"

"Of course, Parent."