“I’ll see what I can do.” The Spider King cut the mana supply dimming the Comm Orb which was protecting the image.
The recent caller was Duke Aurelius; the man had brought him an interesting proposition. No doubt, the duke had his own ulterior motives, but this was something which would work in both of their favour.
You see, some time ago, the Fertile Kingdom had suffered a devastating defeat and its ruling class was pretty much wiped out. That resulted in the fracturing of powers and the fall of the kingdom. Currently, it was ruled by warring factions of various warlords: some were nobles of the Fertile Kingdom, others were bandits who had risen to power.
But the biggest and strongest faction was the Covenant of the Black Hand. They had made their tower in the ruins of the Fertile Kingdom’s capital and were slowly building their power from there on. They had money and magic to back them up, however, their right to rule wasn’t recognised by either the Warlords or the people of the fallen kingdom. Yes, the Fallen Kingdom is what it is called now.
However, the biggest problem wasn’t the Covenant or the Warlords, it was something more mundane. Firstly, without the wood elves (who were mysteriously wiped out) to keep the monster population in check, the monsters spilt from the bordering forest to devastate the farmlands and the nearby settlements. Secondly, with the fall of the ruling class, there was no one to organise a Monster Hunter force to cull the monster incursion. The two issues resulted in the ever-diminishing harvest. Hence, as ironic as it might sound, the kingdom once known as the Fertile Kingdom was currently suffering extreme food shortages and a monster incursion as a cherry on top.
This brings us to Duke Aurelius's proposal: send spiders to clean this mess and in turn win the trust of the people. The man himself couldn’t do it for two reasons: one, he was hated there; two, he was currently at war with the Holy Empire. Sure, the spiders could sort this mess and they will, but what’s in it for the duke? – well, eventually, he would get to annex the Fallen Kingdom into his dutchy. Or so he thought…
The Spider King didn’t promise that outcome hence the words: ‘I’ll see what I can do’. However, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t send the spiders to fix that mess of the kingdom. Even better, due to the lack of better things to do, he’d decided to sort this personally.
He turned to look at the Trusty Advisor.
“I understand. I’ll get the ship ready.” He chirped simply.
The spider was so competent that the Spider King didn’t even need to explain his intentions.
…
The Drow Assistant watched the Galleon Whale being loaded with all manner of potions, and weapons as well. Something big was happening and her King was going somewhere, presumably on yet another quest. He did that rather often recently, leaving her to work in the magical workshop alone. His presence was dearly missed there, his vast mana pool and unique perks were indispensable in a lot of tasks involving complicated enchantment procedures. But forget all that, she was his personal assistant, and it was her job to assist him, hence they should go together!
She used Detect Magic to sniff his lingering mana and track him down. She found him on the nearby bench just outside the Spider Palace. He was holding a Sapphire Scale pointed towards the sun, making it glow and shimmer. The Spider King had a ponderous expression on his face as if trying to solve an extremely hard problem. He was so deep in thought that he failed to notice her approach, or perhaps, she was just that stealthy.
She took that moment to straighten her silken dress. The white dress contrasted well with the natural blacks of her body. It was something she had made herself out of her DriderSilk, and it held a good number of enchantments; she was very proud of it.
“My King,” she addressed to get his attention, “I want to assist you on your Quest.”
The shimmering scale quickly disappeared into his Magical Inventory. Their eyes met and she noticed a tinge of embarrassment on his face.
At that moment a thought crossed her mind: ‘Perhaps I’ve made the dress too revealing.’ Indeed, it was rather see-through in some places. However, she liked that type of attention.
Feeling more confident she puffed her chest. “As your personal assistant, I insist you take me.” Ah! Perhaps too confident; she regretted using the word ‘insist’.
He gave her a good look over. “If you insist then I must take you.” He nodded as if to reassure himself. “You’re a drider now and much stronger than you were.”
True! And not just a drider, the Drider Calamity. Her uncle, the Drow Highchief, couldn’t believe then he told him; he was positively overjoyed. But let's leave the Drow schemes for another time.
“Yes, and I have access to all four elemental magics. My combined spells would surely come in hand.” She boasted to embellish herself.
“True, you’re the only Wind caster we have. And your elemental magic is a sight to behold.”
It was her turn to blush.
“Drow Assistant, let’s go and check if the ship is ready.” He urged.
“Yes!” She exclaimed with vigour, a small dream of hers just come true.
She had visited the ship on numerous occasions for research purposes, but she never had flown the thing. They went inside the control deck and even if she had seen it before she still marvelled at the spidery designs; something about their style just resonated with her. The buttons and turn knobs were made for spider hands, and the magical implement to power the Spider HyperDrive was an actual web, albeit metallic. And best of all the deck was filled with cute spiders! There was no Drow who wouldn’t find them adorable.
She took a moment to work with the spider crew producing a small set of notes. Just minor stuff like the stuff they held in the cargo hold and the Jobs of each crew member. But also, she began to draft a small schedule. Yes, everything had to be planned and organised! Not that the spiders needed much help with that, however, a certain someone did.
With the preparations done, the ship soared to the skies. She checked a preliminary schedule, the first thing on the agenda was a small stop at the Great Ancestral Tree. Her King had some business with its spirit, better known as the Wisp.
The Ancestral Forest, or the domain of the Great Ancestral Tree as it was known now, was a place she had some bitter feelings about. It used to be their home before things fell apart, and now was a taboo topic for the Drow. Needless to say, she felt anxious about meeting the Wisp. But as a good assistant would, she tagged along at the side of the Spider King.
The Wisp greeted the Spider King with cheer and joy, clearly, they were good friends. The two expanded some pleasantries and then it was business.
Spider King turned to look at her. “Drow Assistant, how many souls was it again?”
She had it all down in her notebook, she took a glance. “17 470 Squirrel Souls contained in 211 SoulStones of various capacities and sizes.”
Spider King gave her a thankful nod. “Yeah, that.” He turned to look at the floating orb of light. “Is that an agreeable amount?”
The wisp expanded and pulsed excitedly. “More than enough!” The deal was sealed.
She followed the Spider King and the Wisp to the location at the base of the Great Ancestral Tree, a Nature Magic Circle. But unlike the elven circles she saw in her youth, this one was entirely different. Not only it was at least ten times bigger, the language used for magical glyphs wasn’t elven either; It was something even more ancient. But there was another surprise, she could decipher parts of it – they were Spider Chirp; It was a combination of two languages, a novel method to produce a magic circle. She urged her hand to draw a rough sketch of it in her notebook.
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Meanwhile, the Wisp called his own assistants. The squirrels took the SoulStones in their paws and buried them in seemingly random locations in and around the magical circle. The wisp flew in the very middle of it and began channelling its mana. The circle came alive and the very air crackled with the green lightning of condensed Nature mana. Drow Assistant scribbled some numbers and calculations in her book. The magical formula solutions made her eyes to pop.
“1 000 000 MP…” She voiced the rough estimate in disbelief.
She didn’t know where or how the Wisp was pulling that out, but that must be something to do with it being the literal manifestation of the will of the Ancestral Forest. Or perhaps the souls had something to do with that. She made more notes scribbling a reminder to discuss all of this with the Spider ArchMage.
The crackling lightning condensed at the altar right beneath the Wisp. If an untrained eye looked at the item on the altar they would see just a gnarled stick, while in actuality it was a piece of the Great Ancestral Tree itself, something the Elves would call a divine-grade artifact. It soaked the lightning bolts and Nature mana greedily. With the last lightning strike, the ritual concluded rather abruptly.
The Drow Assistant did a quick Inspect on the item. Its name was rather ominous, Whispers of Grandeur. She worried it might be a cursed item, but after checking its properties she found no Curses or Hexes there. Actually, its properties were rather underwhelming, all it did was to enable the user to use the Grow spell. The amount of mana and souls used just didn’t add up to produce so little. Unless the ritual failed or there were some hidden properties.
Wait… scratch the failure option. The Spider King was ecstatic with the gnarled stick, he was so happy he was rubbing it to his cheek and kissing it.
“My King, what does this staff do?” She asked just in case he saw something she didn’t.
“It lets me to convert squirrel souls into Grow spell. Isn’t it amazing?” He beamed her an excited smile.
“Anything else?” She asked just to be sure.
“No, that’s it.”
Huh, then she didn’t understand what the fuss was about. A simple druid knew this spell, but also the Spider Kingdom had White Sprigans who could use it too. But hey, boys loved their toys; she did understand that. The Spider King ran up to the Wisp to express his thanks and share his excitement about the divine grade item.
While the two spoke the Drow Assistant couldn’t help but feel self-conscious, she was rather insecure in the presence of the Wisp. It was due to her once being an elf, and also, due to her now being a drider. She felt that their relationship with the Wisp was somewhat strained. Admittedly, however, over time the Drow had mended the relationship with the Ancestral Forest, and they even helped with a particularly nasty insect infestation which plagued the northern forest (now known as the Magical Forest); so her worry was unwarranted. Yet still, she felt strange magical pressure coming from the Wisp, it felt rather targeted.
She found a good moment then the two just finished talking. She steeled herself and asked what had been bugging her for quite some time.
“The Spirit of Great Ancestral Tree,” she addressed. “did I do something to displease you? Are you still angry with us Drow?”
The Spider King gave her a puzzled look of surprise. “Where did that come from?”
The Wisp, however, flew closer to her face; she didn’t shrug or shrink even if his magical presence was overbearing.
“You’ve noticed, I see.” It buzzed. “Of course you did, and the owner of not one but three talents is bound to be sensitive to all magic.”
The Spider King gave another puzzled look but to the Wisp this time.
“You, of all men, should know the best.” It pulsed in laughter. “Detect Magic, Elemental Affinity, and Mana Well makes her extremely perceptive to all magic.”
“Yes,” she nodded to affirm that statement. “That’s why I can detect Curses. But you didn’t answer my question.”
The wisp pulsed rapidly again before finally speaking up. “Displeased? Angry?” It pulsed again. “Quite the opposite. I’m happy you grew so well in your new environment. I was looking so intently because we find your new form… pleasing. It’s much closer to nature than the elves were.” It buzzed happily. “Drider: half-spider and half-drow; how splendid!”
The wisp sure did like animals, and no doubt spiders as well. And hearing it praising her so much, made her wonder that instead of squirrels it was the spiders who were the Wisp's favourite.
“Wisp, stop that.” Spider King began jokingly. “She’s mine, I’m not loaning you my best assistant.”
“Tch.” It clicked its non-existent tongue. “A shame…”
For some reason, even if the two were joking, she felt happy that the Spider King didn’t want to share her.
“Drow Assistant,” He gave her an amused look, “you’re all red.”
“Ahem…” She cleared her throat. “We’re behind schedule, if we want to reach Aurelian Dutchy by nightfall we should go.”
The Spider King turned to the Wisp. “She’s right. Wisp, thanks again for the Whispers of Grandeur. See you later, bud.”
…
The ship was flying at full speed towards the Aurelian Dutchy. And while it was flying, there wasn’t much for the Drow Assistant to do. She had updated her notes with the entry of items they purchased from the Wisp which was mostly Amber. But also there were some shapely furniture, wood crafts and other novelty items; all made using the Shape Wood spell. Even if she wasn’t an elf anymore, she still could appreciate this type of craftmanship. The items were intended as gifts to the Duke Aurelius, who apparently had no furniture except for the ten times mended and repaired stool; a fact she struggled to believe.
Anyways, having some free time didn’t mean that she stopped being the King’s assistant, no, she took her duties very seriously. And as all assistants should, she worried herself with the wellbeing of the King; and at this point, it was the future contents of his dinner. He planned to eat a premade meal, a bundle of cold and processed foodstuff. She won’t be able to call herself an assistant if she would allow this to slide! No, he deserved a full and hearty meal, something made with love and nourishment.
Well, while the Galleon Whale was a marvel of magical technology it didn’t come with a fully equipped kitchen, or kitchen at all. So she had to improvise, which was not that hard considering her background. With rather little challenge she assembled an improvised Heat Plate, which burned using Agave Juice, hence a hot meal could be achieved. And for ingredients, well, she used something very special; no need to let it go to waste. She gave it a good scramble and heated it with small cuts of dried meat and fresh forest vegetables.
She presented the meal to the Spider King.
“Wow, I am surprised. We have no facilities yet still you whipped something this amazing.” He leaned to look at his plate closer. “It looks amazing, and it smells amazing. Don’t mind if I do.” He reached with his hand to eat the food.
She replied with a warm smile. Of course it was amazing, it was nourishing and made with love! Actually, judging by how quickly the Spider King devoured the food, she might just have outdone herself here.
“Magnificent, eleven out of ten.” He rated it while still licking his lips. “I didn’t know I missed fried eggs so much. But tell me, where did you get the eggs?”
“What do you mean?” She asked somewhat confused.
“Well, it’s not like there are chickens here. I haven’t seen any. The eggs you got are simply delicious, I wonder what’s the name of the creature who laid them. Did you get the eggs from the Wisp? when we go back, I’ll ask it if I could adopt these creatures.”
She blinked twice. “Those were Drider Eggs.” She said the most obvious thing there was.
“I beg your pardon?” The Spider King's face went blank.
As the wisp once said: ‘You, of all men, should know the best’; it was the Spider King who evolved her so he should know that she had that Egg Layer perk. Ever since that day, she would lay one egg: infertile and otherwise unwanted. However, it was packed with nutrients and latent magic, she knew because she ate a few unwilling to waste them.
“The egg you ate, I made it.” She told him with pride.
“…” he stared at her for a good minute. “Well, it was super tasty. Thank you.” He bowed very deeply for some reason.
No doubt, he was just extremely impressed by her cooking skills.
“If you liked it so much, I could make this for you every day. Ah, but not more often than once a day.” She said the latter apologetically. “Unless…” She didn’t get to finish.
“A part of me wants to say no… but another part of me demands more delicious eggs. So, it’s once a day? I’m lucky the egg is ostrich-sized.” He gave her lower bottom a curious look.
The Drow Assistant didn’t know what an ostrich-sized meant but that sounded like a compliment. And clearly, he desired more than one a day, the Spider King was being greedy here, but she was in a good mood so…
“With the use of Fertility Potion+ I recon I could lay three or maybe even… five with the right stimulus.” She speculated.
He jumped out of his seat. “No! No, let’s not do that. One is enough, thank you very much!”
She couldn’t understand the root of his overreaction just now.
“Are you sure about that? I don’t mind you know.”
“No-no, I’m positive. And just in case, stay away from that potion.” He warned her rather sternly.
She took her notes out and made a note to investigate the side effects and possible hidden properties of the said potion.
Noticing her nodding the Spider King’s face mellowed and he sat back in his chair. Soon a gleeful look was back on his complexion. “Cakes, Pies… and maybe even Tiramisu…” he was muttering some strange incantation.
She wrote the strange names in her notebook, more strange and unknown things to investigate. Just as she finished the spider chirped informing them that they soon be landing in Aurelian Duchy’s capital.
“My King, we need to strap in.”
“Ah, yes. Thanks for reminding me.”
So absent-minded! How did he manage so far without her? – Another mystery to be solved. She noted that in her notebook.