CHAPTER 9: BRUTAL AND PREDATORY

PART 1 OF 2

While blissfully dozing in a snuggly pocket of warmth, Lucas’s empty belly began gurgling in the darkness. His good mood was ruined somewhat as he rolled the desiccated badger around in his hands, searching for any gristle he hadn't chewed or any bones he hadn't sucked. As the desiccated skeleton clanked around in his hands it dawned on him, there really was nothing left.

With only one other option, Lucas pulled out the dead Arach he had stored in his inventory. After a great deal of twisting and yanking, he managed to pull off one of its legs. The upper leg segment was thick, and the outer shell of the carapace was full of viscous goo. With no small amount of trepidation, he inserted his hand into the carapace. Lucas grimaced as his hand sank into cold slime. He got hold of what might have been some kind of spongy muscle and ripped it out. The slime was a thick grease that clung stubbornly to every corner of his mouth, tasting like burned rubber and bin juice.

Lucas heard the Arachs leaving their nest as he was trying to wash the taste out of his mouth. They didn't head out to hunt like usual. Instead, they seemed to be wandering around aimlessly. Lucas watched them from his alcove as he considered his next moves and touched the tender wound on his scalp. Blood had hardened all through his hair, plastering it to his head.

Most of the Arachs did make their way up to the entrance eventually. Others stayed, engaging in peculiar behaviour like gently scraping their scythes together with a sound like nails on a chalkboard, or just standing motionless for long periods of time. Without the Broodmother they seemed to have lost the structure that had governed their lives. Each Arach was now acting independently. While he waited for the immediate area to clear out, he took some time to organise his Inventory.

The Powerful Nexus of the Brood was there, represented as a green orb. He pulled it out. It was much larger than his other Nexus’.

[https://i.imgur.com/kiaAblD.jpg]

If a Nexus is an imprint of the way something uses Mana, the Broodmother must have been using Mana to run this nest somehow. The Nexus of Anger had flooded him with rage when he tried using it. He had no idea what this thing would do to him, but it was obviously rare and powerful. Lucas was desperate for power, but his instincts were screaming at him to throw it away.

He sat and played with it for a while, rolling it around in his hands, contemplating what might happen if he tried using it.

‘Worst case scenario I turn into a Spider right? Not just a spider, but a Broodmother.’

Losing his humanity was not much better than death, but wasnt that what awaited him anyway if he didn't get stronger? Here was a clear and obvious source of power. If the choice came down to becoming a monster or becoming nothing, he would take the monster.

Suppressing his fear, Lucas hardened his resolve and flooded Mana into the Nexus. With it went his entire consciousness. He became suddenly cognisant of a vast network of structures inside the magical orb. At the same time he completely lost awareness of his surroundings, leaving him completely helpless.

Inside the Nexus his mind spread amongst the vast complexities with ease, understanding them instinctively as if they had become an extension of him. He was aware of them in a similar way that he might be aware of his arm; aware it is there, and unconsciously aware of the ways he can move it. If he thought of it like gaining another arm; it would need to be an arm with thousands of little hands, each with thousands of little fingers that could move independently.

He did not know exactly how deep the network branched since, at some point, the branches became too fine for him to explore. It felt like his Mana was too clumsy, or simply too large to fit. Within the patterns he could access, there was already enough complexity to spend a lifetime exploring. In his old world this would have required exhaustive study to understand, but the way his awareness and understanding moved with his Mana made comprehending the patterns natural and instinctive.

In a flash of insight he suddenly understood something fundamental about this world. He withdrew his consciousness from the Nexus for a moment, his senses again restoring him to the dark, cold of the cave, hearing nothing but the trickle of water. In his old world his brain would send electrical energy down his nerves to carry his intentions and his muscles would burn chemical energy to do the work. Two different forms of energy, one carried the information and one did the work. In this world Mana was both. His Mana carries the instructions of how he wants to move and also carries the energy to perform the action. More than that, his Mana could leave his body; carrying with it both his intentions and the force required to enact his will. Using his Mana to control something was essentially like extending himself into something.

The implications of that were staggering. His body was only one tool of many, and he himself was his Mana. With a sense of awe, he moved his consciousness along the Mana pathways that coursed through his own body. An internal view of his body lit up within his awareness. He sat fascinated as he ‘watched’ his heart pumping blood through the vast network of veins and vessels. His attention drifted through different organs trying to figure out how they work, but was again only able to go so deep. His Mana was only refined, or subtle enough, to access the larger mechanical structures of his body.

‘That's incredible.’

Lucas considered the Nexus again. The patterns seemed to reflect an alien way of looking at the world. A human would structure things in categories and subcategories, organised into lists. This was totally different; everything was connected to everything else in a great tangle of incredibly fine detail. A web-like structure very suitable to a spider's mind.

As his consciousness spread among the structure he began to get a sense of the intelligence behind it, or how the consciousness that created it must operate. It was efficient, but brutal and predatory. The strange ‘spidery’ quality, that was common to the Arach Auras, began to make more sense. Everything was defined by the relationship between hunger and satisfaction, with murder being the only bridge between. It was a disturbing insight. He didn't like the way it was affecting his thoughts. It felt as if, in coming to understand it, he might find a reflection of it in himself. But, at least he hadn't turned into a spider.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Less afraid now, Lucas immersed himself into the Nexus patterns. He quickly realised that he was missing something. The Mana sent into the various network functions, within the Nexus, picked up patterns that amounted to layers of instructions. There was, however, nothing to instruct.

‘I guess that's where the eggs come in.’ Lucas withdrew himself from the Nexus trance, and brought out a Cave Arach egg.

[https://i.imgur.com/SnZQkBK.jpg]

In an attempt to create the ‘right conditions’ he held the egg and the Nexus together and entered the Nexus again. Now, as he activated the functions with the Nexus’ patterns, the coded Mana began infusing the egg. It seemed that the primary use of the Nexus was to feed Mana into the eggs to bring them to maturity. The tiny spider in the egg had its own supply of Mana that would probably allow it to hatch by itself eventually, but infusing it with a large amount of Mana through the Nexus would bring it to maturity immediately. That wasn't all however, the Mana could also hold instructions that altered the way the embryo developed.

Lucas frowned. The network of functions had a vast array of tools to modify the spider's body, but most of them were too sophisticated for his Mana to work with. The Broodmother must have had finer or more suitable Mana. That could be an expression of its Spirit stat. He had not Analysed the Broodmother, but his Spirit was only at 3. It did feel like he could try forcing his Mana into a few more functions. He pushed experimentally at the entrance to a pattern that was only slightly too small. He stopped when he realised the structure inside the Nexus was stretching. If he brute forced his way in he would probably distort the structures. Better to wait until he increased his Spirit stat. Besides, there were still some things he could do. He could adjust the creature's life span and its general size without needing to venture into the ultra fine functions.

From what he was seeing he would need 4 Mana to bring an egg to maturity. The resulting Arach would be about the size of a ‘house cat’. He only had 3 maximum Mana, so even that was out of reach. Thinking about the size gave him an idea. He ran Mana through the pattern used to increase size, but in reverse order. This resulted in the full grown size of the Arach becoming smaller and smaller. When the Mana cost stubbornly stayed at 4, he also tried reducing their lifespan. Only once it reached the size of his palm, with a lifespan of a few days, did the Mana cost finally drop down to 3.

The Broodmother obviously had a massive Mana pool, considering the formidable size of Cave Arachs she had been hatching. Elated now that he could hatch anything at all, Lucas watched with great anticipation as the three Mana bands in his Aura emptied their power into the Nexus. The egg quickly grew in his hand, as the spider within squirmed. It only took about twenty seconds for the little arachnid to mature and use one of its tiny scythes to cut open the egg from the inside.

As its little legs gripped his skin, Lucas fought the instinct to shake it off his hand. Its Aura glowed in the darkness, a little ball of curiosity. It had the same ‘spidery’ nature as the Cave Arachs, but not as alien. It felt somehow familiar. A popup appeared.

[https://i.imgur.com/7ZLCCit.jpg]

‘Aww it thinks I'm its dad.’

It was almost enough to forget how nasty its legs felt on his skin. Lucas sat still as it crawled all over, investigating him. When it was apparently satisfied it scampered down to the rock face and began skittering side to side, clearly expecting something.

‘I.. really don't know, little guy,’ Lucas thought.

Soon it turned and made its way down to the cavern floor. Its tiny size and strong legs made it an excellent climber, scampering over the rockface with ease. Lucas watched until its tiny Aura went out of sight. He had no idea what it was doing but it seemed to have something in mind. Lucas peeked over the edge, withdrawing his Aura to avoid attention.

The Cave Arachs didn't seem to notice Lucas’s new friend. It was probably too small to be considered prey. The Cave Arachs were behaving more like lone predators than a nest since the Broodmother died. Many would go past his alcove on the way to the surface, presumably to hunt, but they didn't drag any paralysed prey back as they had been doing before.

Having so many Arachs idling in the caverns made it very hard to keep up his free running practice. Lucas was about to climb down, after the area was finally clear, when he saw a tiny Aura making its way up to him. It was his little Broodling, and it appeared to be dragging something with it. Lucas could see the something’s faint Aura so it wasn't dead, but it also wasn't moving. When he touched it a popup appeared, as if it was an item

[https://i.imgur.com/9ox1bWl.jpg]

“Did you paralyse it?”

Suddenly Lucas understood: The Cave Arachs had been dragging paralysed monsters and wildlife to give to their Broodmothers. They had stopped only because their Broodmother died. One of the patterns he had seen in the Nexus suddenly seemed to make more sense with this context.

Lucas brought out an egg and the Brood Nexus. He held out both towards the rat and, after a moment of hesitation, got his dagger out and killed it. The moment its little Aura dissipated, Lucas opened the channels for the Nexus to feed Mana into the egg. Sure enough, some of the energy from the dissipating Aura was sucked into the Nexus and fed to the egg. This is how the Broodmother was creating whole generations of new Arachs, not with her own Mana but the life force from the kills her children brought into the nest.

He immediately regretted wasting the rat’s life force, alone it hadn't been enough to make an entire point of Mana, but if he could combine the life force of several sacrifices at once, he could combine them to create something powerful. New possibilities were opening up, and it looked like he had finally found a pathway to power. Lucas’s imagination immediately started expanding as he realised the possibilities this unlocked. But as he visualised himself sucking the life out of entire ecosystems to create invincible armies, he hesitated. Sacrifices? Sucking life force? Yes this was clearly a path to power, but a very dark one, soaked in death.

He shook his head. He didn't have to take it that far, but there was no way he could turn his back on a tool that gave him such an immediate path to survival… and revenge. Besides, if it ended up cascading into an apocalypse scenario, this world deserved it.