Clare

Using her Spider Queen Pheromone intelectus, Clare directed the fist-sized spider hatchlings to weave together more bandages. This intricate dance of spiders going over and under was thanks to the perk Programmed Operation. It let her make a limited number of exceptionally complex commands, but they had to be prepared ahead of time.

Taking the silk patch directly from where her babies were making it, Clare began to wrap the bleeding wound on a thigh-thick chitin leg.

Her Blood Control skill was usually up to the task of keeping the vital energy and fluid inside where they belonged. There was just too much venom this time. Unfortunately, being a Blood Spider did not provide immunity from their own poison. Or, in this case, that of another lieutenant.

Laz getting brutalized by Giddian was another moment in a disturbing trend. The infighting was growing worse. Most spiders were not the most social of animals in the first place. Being a monster of Leternum, they had adapted some of the pack instincts that survival in this world seemed to demand. This left them on the anti-social side of being social animals.

A tear mixed with the blood splatter on Clare's cheek as she watched Laz chitter in agony.

This is my fault. She thought.

Cloth made from Blood Silk Spiders could be imbued with the reverse of their typical magical effect. Instead of compounding with their venom and drawing blood out, it could be made to push blood away. That was how they made the Blood Well under her throne. Across the entire network of threads, strands had more 'suction' the closer to the core of the Territory.

Wrapping Laz was her best bet to keep him from bleeding out in this case.

Have I done all I could have? Clare accused herself. Until now, she had been meticulous in keeping their allocation of Alpha energy equivalent so they would not risk infighting. Clearly, Laz was lagging behind. She needed to support him more to keep the peace.

Mentally reaching into her core, she saw the familiar ball with a cream half and a dark red half. Half was a misnomer. The red spider section loomed over the other part, taking up more than two-thirds of the mass. Clare was pretty proud of that ratio. So much had gone into balancing her racial aspects. Clare threw her significant willpower into drawing threads of typified Alpha energy from the spider side of her core. Unspooling the energy and ejecting it from her core felt like deflating a support. Not painful, or causing discomfort, just enough negative feedback to know instinctively it was giving up strength.

From a patch of red chitin on her ribs below her left breast, an injury healed as a spider instead of a human, glowing red blood flowed. Directing it into Laz's body through the wound, Clare finished wrapping the last uncared for injury.

The energy transferred was a balm to its pain, settling him down. Laz would recover to fighting shape in a few days, but the amputations would take several moltings to grow back out. Every molt would let one more exoskeleton section recover.

Punishing wasn't a concept Blood Spiders understood. So Clare tamped down her desire for retribution. Giddian was just doing what his instincts told him to. Eliminate the competition. Competition for her. Acidic anger grew in her stomach.

Why, why did I ask for this? Clare thought. Anger-tinted memories of her time in the original Colony flowed through her mind. She had been so gullible, and they had used her. Guilt from just being alive and safe.

Letting her anger leak through the Alpha spectrum, she mixed it with fantasies of violence. It didn't matter what they were; even the lieutenants weren't sensitive enough to know what messages she put in them.

They could tell enough to help them survive. That the Queen, their Alpha, was angry and dangerous to everything. Even Laz stuttered up to its feet and stumps to hobble away.

Using this manufactured moment of peace, Clare went to the Blood Well. Here the threads were so saturated that her Blood Control skill let her manipulate each strand directly. Opening the floor behind her throne, Clare fell into the egg chamber below.

Lit with glowing fungi, the red cast showed a lot of empty room. Once full of eggs that Clare could pump her overgrowing spider side into, she was now using less than a quarter of the space.

Closing off the air vents with more Blood Control, she isolated them from the surface. Only when nothing could escape did she move to address her issue.

Removing her elegant dress so its shape could no longer hide the organ grafting, Clare started unwrapping it. Each layer was stuck together by a pseudo-vital cream harvested in this new Territory. One pass at a time, the spider abdomen was revealed. Miniaturized for the grafting process, it contained everything the Blood Spider Queen's abdomen once had at a fraction the size.

Clare wrung out the wraps to recover as much of the pseudo-vital cream as possible. It worked to block the pheromones from her raw spider side from leaking out. The resilient particles escaped even with her Spider Queen Pheromone skill and alchemical poultice. She would still do all she could to reduce the error of a message.

The pheromone message was coded into the monster's essence. Beyond the reach of biology and the mind, the spider's imperative to breed was dominating. That was the core of the problem. Clare faced the burning fact with a determination that kept her Spider mind suppressed. Running from the truth would only risk her losing control again. Still, the problem seemed to be just too much sometimes.

She wasn't strong enough, and that is why Giddian attacked Laz. Still, what were her options? Breed with a spider? Clare shuddered with revulsion at the idea.

Reality made her think the prospect over again. Just as it had done so many times before. She'd long since broken away from her Earth-based sensibilities. Holding on to any norms she could was part of her plan to keep her mind, but it was like trying to grasp the wind in a flame. Even if you held some, it would burn away.

An even bigger problem than the infighting was that this clutch of eggs was her last. They were already dangerously saturated with energy. Without an energy sink, Clare would lose her mind. Reality and her shredded humanity fought. As before, she put off any meaningful decision.

Not yet. I don't have to decide yet. Clare nodded with conviction.

With a wry smile, she considered her newest option. A human Alpha. In theory, there was a world where they could sustain an existence. Before the Hybrid sickness took over her mind, she'd read the write-up on her grafting. Her essence was tied together with that of the Blood Spider Queen. That was why it didn't matter if the grafted organ was damaged. Simply ripping the cursed thing off wouldn't cure her any.

But what that did mean was that her human hormones and essence should influence the spider side. In theory, having a baby should shut down the signal just like a full egg sack. Further, she was sure she could shunt extra spider energy into a human child.

As an experiment, she had funneled some of her precious human energy into a spider egg. It took it. No leakage into the terrain, no deformities. If a spider could handle it, then why not a human?

Worry about cursing another life to live as she did faded quickly in the face of reality. In the end, she was driven by fear. Ironically her spider side approved with its callous disregard of offspring blended with self-preservation. Clare's fear of losing her mind and becoming an inhuman monster again drove her to sacrifice so many things she had once held dear.

Peeling a slab off a small hole in the ground, Clare accessed her supply of proto-vital cream. Absentmindedly she began reapplying it to the silk strips, her mind occupied by the new Alpha.

Mathew didn't feel very strong, all things considered. Maybe on the same level as a lieutenant. That meant he was new, and his Hybrid sickness would only worsen. There was no way to know if he could stabilize or not. Even though the early signs were good, the fact that everyone had failed, including her, did not inspire confidence.

They hadn't talked enough for Clare to get a good read on him. She also didn't recognize the beast side of what he was. Carrion Beasts weren't a species she'd scanned in her roamings. It didn't make sense... unless what he said about not seeing Doctor Hundle wasn't a lie.

Either way, it would be an irritating victory. Losing a lead on Hundle would put her back on her plans. On the other hand, finding someone who became an Alpha independently would give her more information than even Doctor Hundle had.

If Mathew was lying and a willing agent of Hundle, then her lead would still be intact, but she would have lost the potential Mathew brought to the table.

Clare's crimson eyes flicked down to where her hands had wrung the silk wrapping into a mess.

Breath in. Breath out.

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Removing all distractions, Clare focused on the task at hand. Reapplying the absorbent cream and wrapping the chitin appendage. It wasn't easy to twist back far enough to make sure she didn't leave any gaps, but experience guided her efforts.

When her mind would wander, she'd remember the price paid in blood for her failures. Even outside her care for her messed-up family, a blood bath like before would seep into the land if it didn't happen on the network of webs. The vital energy in the blood would infuse the land with enough power to make her neighbors jealous.

Being forced out of her Territory so soon was not acceptable. Not without a sink for her spider essence growth.

Finishing her chore, Clare pulled her dress back over her head. It was raw vanity, not a trait she had explored much before the raid apocalypse. Now it was an anchor. Sacrificing time, effort, and energy into appearance was entirely human.

She knew it was a vice to focus on her beauty and hide her flaws, but in its own way, it would be unfair not to. What was a victory worth without indulgence? Winning and not acting like a winner was just another way of losing.

Clare caught her mind from walking down a warped twist away from her proper self-control.

Pressure against her Territory reclaimed her attention. Of course, the loss of power with her lieutenant's infighting wouldn't go unnoticed. Mobilizing her forces to counter would be tricky without Laz to hold their formation. She could fill the gap personally, but now was not a good use of time for her to be tied up in dominance battles. That was why she colonized this wasteland in the first place.

Controlling her frustration, Clare vaulted up into the Throne Room. An effort of willpower opened the strands interweaving the floor without regard for each strand being stronger than steel cable.

Sitting on the throne always helped her focus. Knowing that she carried the weight of a crown and the cost of failure was blood sharpened her mind.

The recent meeting proved that Mathew couldn't be a threat yet. If the Nightstalker Spire wasn't a thru fare, then she could divert her army to the other sides. She would need enough breathing room to get Mathew's Territory sorted out, but it was a possible solution.

Mulling the idea over, Clare began to draw on vitality and blood from the well that was her throne. Hot and tingling like electricity, the red vestal of Leternums power soaked through her dress and coated her skin.

Drawing on this well of power was a calculated risk. Part of Clare stared with glee through the gaps in her self-control as a reckless smile cracked her face.

Trembling with barely contained energy, she rose to the balls of her bare feet and jumped into her bedroom. With forced slowness, Clare picked up a sword she knew by heart. Caustic Resolution was not her most potent weapon, but it let her push her sanity further. It settled on her hip as a welcome companion.

Next was a smaller and heavier selection. A variation of a parrying dagger, designed to break armor and pry open shells and expose prey's insides to her designs.

There were several reasons to fight over Territory. The two big ones were food and Alpha spectrum energy. This neighbor of hers had a mineral-based diet. If they wanted her power, they could have its taste at the end of a blade.

Poetry of violence flowed in channels of her mind. Keeping even her violent impulses cerebrally engaged. Occupied and relatively quiet. Her human guile gave her beast side cunning beyond its instincts and years. When she faced her enemy, it would not be on the other side of a declaration of war. It would be with cunning violence.

Coming back to herself, Clare's feet carried her down the highway of her Territory. Her heart trembled as she faced her deepest fear again. Going to sleep and not waking up was a small death. Being alive didn't change that fact for her. Waking back up months later didn't change that fact for her. Losing time alive was death to every possibility she could have taken. The weights she could have carried. People she could have saved. Any difference she could have made. She'd lost those lives once, and she feared it again.

Fear was strength, though. Its power vibrated through her. As she approached the junction between her Territory and that of a more powerful Alpha, Clare pit her human fear of death against the instinctual fear of death facing a stronger opponent.

Instincts told her to turn away and not pick the fight. The spider's mind roused to the surface, hissing louder. Clare told it no, as her feet flung her to the end of her fortifications. A memory of being an Alpha spider cried its dominance to make decisions again.

"Never!" Clare's smile cracked wider. "I am the Queen of my throne! My enemies bleed for me! As I command, so shall it be! I say we fight!"

Over the hills, a herd of glistening gold mounds trudged her way. Each one outweighed her by literal tons of weight. Her land shook with the inevitability of their march.

At their head, a titanic bull literally chewed on a slab of meteorite, smoke puffing from its nose like a chimney. It looked somewhat like a wide Rinocerious covered in glimmering gold plates and spikes on top. Air passed below her soaked dress as it whipped in the wind behind her. Uneven ground crunched as she continued to close the distance.

Pressure against her Territory Reinforcement built up. Her foes were used to moving rock and metal. Holding back the weight of her flexible Reinforcement was something they were suited for.

Time to make rocks bleed.

Spiders skittered from their ambush locations and flanked her assault before their undeveloped senses told them to cut and run from their foolish Alpha. Clare didn't waste any energy forcing them to fight for her.

Again her spider instincts rebelled at her decision. Care for the next generation was a luxury that couldn't be afforded against a more powerful foe. Clare thought better. Even though she had accepted that the young would be sacrificed in the war of survival, Clare detested wasting them.

Hot with energy, Clare pitted her will and Territory against the more powerful Alpha in front of her.

Slowly methodically, it continued to approach.

You were warned. She thought.

Veering off to the side, Clare rushed the herd flanking the Alpha bull. Targeting what was either a young bull or a cow, she activated her Alpha skill [Avatar of Blood].

The buzzing heat of blood wrapping her and staining her dress expanded, leaving her clean and suspended off the ground. A shell of blood formed into the spider of her nightmares.

"It is not my body" Clare told herself. "I am a giant spider mech pilot."

Eight red columns stabbed the world as legs and carried her over the ground with a height and control she couldn't manage without the Avatar. Then she was in the fight before an overthinking could occur.

Her target swung its boulder of a face to intercept her path.

With a slight shift, Clare's body missed the attack. The Avatar cocoon splashed. Giving up its rigid form for the durability of liquid flexibility. Passing by the wide amber eyes, Clare was sure her strategy would work. Those were not the eyes of a predator.

Flashing past, she landed on the warm neck. Without waiting for her Avatar to reform, she brought her short stout dagger to play. Cracks interspersed the golden armor where it flexed, and the neck region of these beasts was full of them.

Clare stabbed into the crack and wrenched the blade sideways with faith it could handle the force. [Tactician's Perseverance], her parrying dagger, showed its durability and specialization as it dug into the streams of vitality and destabilized them as surly as it split flesh.

A bellow of pain from the herd drew the opposing Alpha's ire more strongly. Literal fire started venting from the metal-eating Alpha monster as it turned on her.

With a half-smile half-snarl, Clare and the reformed Avatar plunged deeper into the herd. Some startled, some lashed out. Each too slow to escape or land a hit.

She landed on another prey beast. This one had a slab of protective minerals missing from its back. No doubt a story and history that would have piqued her curiosity in the past. Now the missing armor was reduced to a weakness to be exploited.

Stabbing [Tactician's Perseverance] into the thick hide and drawing a cut, Clare reminded herself that this was a blade, not a fang. Spreading discord in the beast's Health was metaphysical, not poison. Each fact she held as a latch to keep her mind her own.

With more time than her first attack, she kept hacking away. Drawing the free-flowing blood into her Avatar extended its timer. Not enough to make the skill self-sustaining, but she was just getting started.

Agitation drove the invading Alpha after her. Its once delicate pushing aside to get through the herd was replaced by a more forceful urgency. A rotten egg smell radiated from it as heat warped the light of its silhouette.

Another second, another pair of slashes. Clare judged she had more time.

Crimson Alpha spectrum energy swirled within the beast's mouth. A whirlpool of power with a light at its core.

Primal fear of her own resonated with that of her spider. Diving over the back of her most recent victim, Clare's avatar flowed around it before reforming and catching her.

Red flames blasted into the side of the herd beast and licked around it, chewing into her blood skill. Pain sunk into her spider core as her Health was damaged directly through its connection to Clare's Alpha skill.

Dodging away uncertainty whispered weakness into her ear. Was she so wrong? Why would the Alpha risk and harm its own?

She would have anticipated this behavior from a carnivore or solitary monster. Herd Alphas showed deep concern for their charges. Clare never had verified it, but her guess was that they gained more power from all the members than the Alpha spectrum. Or at least the loss hurt enough to change their very instincts.

Gaining distance, she surveyed the dying conflagration. If anything, the target of the blast was improved. Not much different from her infusing of Laz. Its Alpha energy based fire would burn enemies and heal their own.

Clare smiled as her worry faded. Her understanding wasn't wrong. Not having all the information was different than finding out what you knew was actually wrong. She could handle the former.

Adjusting her strategy, Clare kited around more often. Moving all the way from one side of the population to the other before finding a target and making it bleed.

Her skill took two more hits of roiling fire before she found the safe limit of its range. Then it was just a matter of time. She couldn't hurt the Alpha Monster, and it couldn't hurt her.

Sure she was hemorrhaging blood from her well, but its herd was literally bleeding out. Normally in a conflict between Alphas, this is the point where one would blink first, unwilling to shoulder the cost. Clare had accepted the price no matter how much it was. Her whole Territory was temporary anyway.

Hours of playing cat and mouse went by. Drawing up the spilled blood into her skill let Clare offset the cost. Withdrawing for a few minutes every hour let her recover enough mental energy to keep at it indefinitely. Targeting the charges of an Alpha was a tactic that hit home with her as she deeply cared for her own children. Months of surviving in this world removed any sympathy Clare had for others though. Let them bleed let their children bleed. Peace was never an option.

Darkness had passed over the land when it finally bellowed an angry order of retreat.

A hard-won victory. Clare assessed the costs. She stunk like rotten eggs and felt an new world type of weakness. Not so weak that she didn't feel better than any other time in her life, but weak relative to her enhanced ability.

Even with decent Endurance and Resilience, it would take days for her to fully recover to her prime.

On top of the weakness were the long-term costs. She'd be able to refund a quarter of the remaining vitality to the blood well. More than she'd hoped to spend but the fire was a hard counter to her fluid skill. Otherwise, her worry was the growth of her spider side. A smile played across her lips as she adjusted her dress and approached her Territory fortifications.

The damage transferred to her spider side Health did a good job of holding back the growth that came from using [Avatar of Blood].

She'd lost ground against her beast but not as much as she worried.

Hopefully would give her a few days of peace to get everything sorted out. Mathew had better be worth it.