Mana, spider and travel

In the hour after gaining the spiders’ body, Will discovered that it still had its independence. If he did nothing, then the spider would begin to move on her own again. He discovered this when the spider suddenly jumped in the air and landed outside of his mana sensing range.

While the spider was farther away than he could control mana to sense, he was still able to feel the spider, but he could not control it anymore. ‘Come back.’ Will thought when he felt like the spider would just go and continue its life.

It surprised him when the spider turned around and leaped to land near him to then crawl on top of his sphere. He felt some kind of connection between him and the arachnid. ‘Am I connected to it? Are the little emotions I can feel coming from the spider?’

Finding no other explanation, Will tried testing this hypothesis out. ‘Make 2 turns around me.’ He could only accept his deduction as true when the spider did what he just asked. ‘Not only can I control its body, I also made it my slave? Damn, that is cool.’

Will commanded the spider to push him, he wanted to try moving his round body, but the spider was way too small to do it. Then he thought of something: ‘If I can make the ground under me move into a slope and elevate it, I should be able to move.’

While he tried his idea, he found that it would be really slow and too expensive to move this way. ‘It takes too much mana to assimilate the soil, not even taking into account the amount to then move it around.’

‘What can I do to move then? Little spidey can’t move me, and I can do little to gain mobility.’ While thinking about it, the spider regained the top of his sphere. He did not sense it at the beginning, but after failing to find an idea on how to move efficiently, he discovered that the spider is draining mana from him.

‘What is it doing?’ He thought while observing what it did with the mana. He felt the mana leave him and enter through the spider's mouth to then divide inside the sternum. It then spread to each part of its body: each leg, the head, and the abdomen.

Will observed it happen, and when he thought the spider would stop because it hit the point where no more mana could enter, he was surprised to see the spider get bigger. ‘What? It is using my mana to grow.’

The drain was slow, about as much as he gained when not consciously breathing in. And so was the spiders’ growth, Will felt it because he had the point of view of the spider. In the 5 minutes he let it do that it barely growed a millimeter in size.

‘If it grows enough it will be able to carry me, so let’s help it.’ Will began sending his mana to the spider, the flow increasing progressively. The spider sensed it and tried to eat it even harder, in half an hour it grew to what Will estimated as the size of a dog. It is at that moment that he nearly ran out of mana, he sent more in the spider than he could get from the air.

When he stopped funneling his mana inside the spider, it tried swallowing Will whole, which surprised him. He quickly took control of the arachnid and stopped it. Then he thought: ‘Wait, the spider indeed can’t carry me well. Its mandibles don’t have the correct shape to do so. But I don’t know what would happen if I get eaten, and I don’t really want to know.’

Will controlled the spiders’ body to pick himself up, and remarked yet again something. ‘What is that feeling? It’s similar to how the ground feels like.’ He tried modifying the back of the spider, and a little spike sprouted on the surface of its abdomen where Will willed it.

‘I can modify it? Damn, makes me regret not learning more biology stuff.’ Will tried different alterations on the spider, he made it as somber as he could, at least based on the spider’s vision. Then he found out that he can make it stronger, the more so the more mana needed. But at least it didn’t cost mana to use muscles.

He also reinforced the exoskeleton. ‘It’s better not to break it when I try moving I guess.’ Next he tried changing how the spider saw, its vision was garbage. He could barely see at all, the spider was so near sighted he could only see forms when things were farther than 20 centimeters from his face.

As a final change he rearranged the organs in its abdomen and embedded him in the underside where he changed its exoskeleton. From what he could feel, he would guess only a small bump would be visible from an exterior point of view.

‘So, I now have 2 far sighted eyes, 2 nearsighted in the front and the 4 others placed so I have a 360° angle of vision. I can’t see under or above me, but my mana should be enough, I can finally begin to move.’

Commending the spider his sphere is in now, he looked at the grass and soil he assimilated before. ‘I can just do that again if I need to.’ With this thought he looked around and chose a direction where the foliage seemed to become thinner in the distance.

He advanced comfortably in the forest, his 4 powerful back legs giving him ample strength, the 4 front ones thinner but way quicker to aid redirecting himself to weave between the trees. He advanced as fast as someone would while sprinting, but he did so with the ease of walking.

He sped through the forest for nearly an hour, during this period of time he encountered numerous animals. Some boars, something looking similar to a dear, and now he found a cat in a tree. At each encounter he felt the consciousness of the spider wanting to leap and send its venom in the wildlife to eat.

But not knowing if it would be dangerous for him to do so with boars or dears, he knew a cat wouldn’t be a problem. The spiders’ body has an exoskeleton a centimeter thick, even the eyes are protected by a sheet of transparent chitin. So the cat shouldn’t be able to do anything to this armor.

He slowly crept up the tree, the spider does not have any hearing organ, so Will moved slowly to be sure not to make any sounds. When he got to the cat, it seemed to feel something and opened its eyes. But it was already too late, Will dove and planted the two fangs inside the cats’ neck, following the feelings the spider sent him to know how to inject the venom.

It was revealed to be a paralyzing kind of venom, the cat stopped moving seconds after the bite, and its breathing slowed to then stop completely after around 4 minutes. Will let the spider take control and let it spin the cat in its web, forming a cocoon with the cat inside. It then bite inside the cocoon and injects another venom.

This one was different, it was not a paralyzing one. It is secreted in another gland inside the abdomen, and it is not connected to the same pouch as the paralyzing one. So Will deducted it wasn’t the same. And it revealed to be true when 30 minutes later the spider plunged its fangs inside and began drinking the liquid soup the cat became.

‘Oh, it’s a tissue dissolving acid. Impressive' Will admitted being surprised, he knew some insects used the same strategie, but he never really took time to learn about those. The acids he knows of are for more industrial uses.

It took less than 5 minutes for the spider to finish its meal, Will sensed the abdomen inflating to take it all in. Then he resumed his travel, going in the same direction he was heading to before. And 10 minutes later he found a settlement. It wasn’t much, rudimentary houses made of planks with dried hay on the slanted roof.

‘Is this some survivors’ campement or something?’ Will asked himself rhetorically. The settlement looked like a village made of 20 or so cruck houses. Being intrigued he jumped on top of the nearest house, passing over a fence waist-high without realizing it was even here.

After he landed he felt the hairs present near the joints of his legs tremble, not like when the wind blows, something different. The consciousness of the spider sent him blurry memories of big beings passing while and after this kind of trembling happened. ‘Wait, is there a giant around or something? No, wait, it’s not a premonition thing, isn’t it picking air vibrations? So it should be vibrating because of some sound.’

Will turned left and right to find if something noisy was around, and indeed found something to his right. A woman running away from where he is. ‘Was the trembling I felt because she saw me and cried before running away?’

While Will is conscious that his appearance is surely something taken out of a horror movie, a monster is a monster because of how it acts. So in his mind, Will thinks that as long as he does not attack the people here, they shouldn’t try doing anything to him.

So he waited on the roof, turning to look around. ‘Having only 2 farseeing eyes both on the front isn’t comfortable.’ Will thought, not really happy to have to move so much to observe his surroundings. His nearsighted eyes not being of much help here.

He did a turn to confirm nobody was around yet, as he was expecting some people to come after some time, and changed his nearsighted eyes to farsighted ones. It took less than half a minute, the mana doing the changes by following his will.

When he was done and concentrated on his surroundings again, he saw a dozen people approaching from the direction the woman ran to. ‘Are those peasants? Did I go back in time or am I in some roleplaying community?’

The group of peasants approached to be 50 meters from Wills’ position, they stopped and crouched, as if to not be seen by the spider. Will saw a woman pointing in his direction, probably the one who fled before.

From his position, Will couldn’t see their expressions, and having no hearing organs other than the fine hairs, he could only fathome at their reaction. What he could see though was that the peasants' clothing seemed dirty, covered in grim and sweat. ‘Is it coloration or are they really peasants?’

Despite the obvious magic he himself used to arrive here inside a giant spider, Will still felt uncertain. ‘Am I still on earth? At least the earth I know of?’ While he thought about it, the peasants grabbed their tools and slowly approached.

*tak* Will reacted when a stone hit his exoskeleton. I didn’t even leave a scratch on it, but it landed near one of his front eyes. And Will did not appreciate it at all, so he began descending to go in the direction the stone came from. ‘Gotta teach politeness to witless jerks.’

But when he began climbing down the wall of the house, he saw 2 men with hoes looking at him, or rather the spiders’ fangs, with sweat filled faces. ‘What the hell is this situation? Are they trying to bait me down? What the FUCK are they taking me for?’ Even if Will is aware of his appearance, he felt quite infuriated to be treated as some stupid beast.

Will had stopped when he saw them, which aggravated the two awaiting him. Their faces contorted to look like they would shit their pants any second now. Will saw that and decided to make them move. ‘You want to humiliate me? Bad call bastards, I’ll humiliate you both!’

Will extended his two fangs, making drops of paralyzing venom run down its length. The two men were now visibly shaking, looking quickly at each other without moving their heads, only their eyes. Will placed himself so drops of his venom fell on one of them. The man got so white you could have thought he died.

The panic was now too much for him, and the man began running faster than he surely ever had before. And seeing this, the other followed quick enough. Will felt the vibration again, and looking forward he found someone pointing to the two fleeing men with an angry face. ‘What? You thought they would stick their necks out for you? They didn’t seem like soldiers to me.’ Will mocked him in his mind.

‘Well what do I do now? Do I just jump away and come back tomorrow, or do I stay here and try to appear friendly?’ Will took a second to choose to turn around and leave. But he didn’t jump this time, he just walked towards the villages’ entrance. Will saw the angry shouting man wave his way, probably indicating to chase after him. But no one dared to come near him, so he just left.