The vast majority of the clan slept peacefully in their Encampment under the lake. During the monsoon season, the water in the lake had swelled, washing over nearly half the buildings in Underbridge. Even in Igna, fewer monsters were out and about, most ready to pass the time away with a strong cider until the season ended.

Tiria was not asleep. She looked down at her long list of tasks for the day and sighed. All of her days were starting to look the same and if her task list didn't look like this, someone would add to it until it did.

But someone had to keep the clan running. She couldn't afford breaks.

In the past six months, she'd built Quarters for most of the clan, meaning that the Command building was empty other than Gi and Poe who slept nearby. Tiria walked quietly so as not to wake them and placed her hand on the Encampment Crystal and pulled up the current status.

Encampment: Underbridge - Lake

Level: 3

Current Morale: 150%

Food Requirements Met: 100%

Population: 107

--Hunters: 28

--Templar: 21

--Healers: 10

--Inquisitors: 31

--Coastal Goblins: 7

Leadership and Elites: 5

Children: 5

Spawn Rate: 6 (per week)

Buildings:

Control

Quarters x12 (Houses ten each)

Kelp Farm

Volcanic Tubers Farm

Dragon Pike Farm

Smithy

Workshop

Perks

(Reach level 5 to unlock)

Next Level Requirements: Reach 200 population

Village Requirements: Reach Level 5

She let her paw drop. The bubble around the Encampment had grown larger with each level, but she'd probably need to demolish some of the existing Quarters to fix the original design. Otherwise, they'd never make it to the Village status at level five. To do the demo though, she'd need at least one more Quarters built first. She sighed.

With a thought, she checked her [Expanded Pocket]. The current gold they had was only ten, not including the money set aside for the dry season tithe which was coming up soon. First, she should go check with Wax and Wane. Those two normally woke up early as well.

She stepped out of the Command building and the sheer number of buildings compared to when they'd first taken over surprised her every time. It was one thing to see it from the Encampment Crystal and another to see it in person. For her, every one of the domed quarters was hours of travel from dozens of otters, moving bricks via their [Expanded Pocket] from the surface to here. It was the gold to buy the bricks and the knowledge from Song on how to get the blueprint.

She rubbed her eyes wearily. Despite her exhaustion, she was proud. This was what they'd built. Tiria walked past the Smithy which was thankfully quiet at this hour, though she imagined Kara would already be getting ready for the day. Her next stop was the workshop. Unlike the Quarters which were low domes, both the Smithy and the Workshop were two story rectangles made of the same red brick.

She stepped inside and the fabric was everywhere. While the clan thankfully spawned with robes, they also had a tendency to get destroyed during their raids in the Barrens. She suspected that Dennen would start working in a couple hours, but the otter wasn't the most consistent so it had a wide spread. She wasn't here for the tailor today however.

Wax and Wane stood huddled over a desk, both of them speaking in half sentences to the other as they wrote down things in two separate notebooks. A candle flickered between them adding some dim light to the Workshop. Some of the clan found them creepy, but to Tiria, they were just the twins. The two of them were always completely in sync.

"Ho, friends," Tiria said and the two otters jolted and spun to look at her.

"Ho Tiria..."

"What brings you here?"

Before she could answer, a meow stopped her short and an honest-to-Danna cat stretched on their desk. "Is that a monster? Or just a cat?"

Wax picked it up protectively and Wane waved his hands disarmingly. "It's just a cat."

"But how did you find a cat? I haven't seen a single non-monster outside of Myshk."

The two of them just stared at her with wide eyes and continued to place their bodies between her and the cat. She stared right back, but they didn't seem up to explaining. She sighed. It didn't really matter.

"When are we confronting the spiders?"

Since she didn't seem interested in their cat anymore, they shuffled it back to the desk and stood in front of it before answering.

"Tonight..."

"...or tomorrow. Depends on the Boss."

Her Progenitor was a great and inspiring leader, but he tended to do things when he thought of them. There might be a thousand dead plans in his head because he got caught up in something else. Still if the twins said tonight or tomorrow, she thought it was safe to assume she could start spending their little reserve in preparation.

Tiria made a check mark on one of her items... and then added another at the bottom. She'd never be done. "Okay, thank you. Anything else for me?"

The two twins looked at each other and then glanced surreptitiously back at their cat. "Are they..."

"...starting breakfast soon?"

"Patience. It's not even dawn yet." It was hard to tell during monsoon season as very little light made its way through both the angry sky-ocean and the lake to them. They'd had to start bringing candles down to work from. Which she'd had to plan and procure obviously.

Without anything else, she left the twins to their designs. The otter Dennen, surprisingly, was awake and heading towards the workshop himself. She got an estimate of how long it would take to finish their current emergency supply, but he just requested more materials so she added another item to her list.

After getting updates from both of them, the Encampment had slowly come alive. Otters shuffled blearily as they went on their way to whatever task they had assigned for the day. A couple of the recently spawned looked around unsure about what they should be doing, but the sleepy industriousness made them feel out of place. One of them stepped up to her.

"Um, Subgenitor? What should we be doing today?"

Tiria raised an eyebrow. "You haven't finished your training yet, have you? You'll need to head down to Samba and Doyle at the training yard."

"Ah okay, we thought the schedule may have changed as Huntress Kumo took the Hunter from our spawn group."

She tried to hide her irritation. Kumo rarely did anything except what she wanted to do. The otter was a pain in her ass even if she technically meant well. Tiria sighed for what felt like the thousandth time that day. "Come on, I'll walk you down."

She made small talk with them as they walked. The two otters with her were Quinn, a Healer, and Tanner, an Inquisitor. Her assistant had been the one to welcome them, but she got caught up on the current affairs of their base in the Child Stage. Few monsters were able to challenge them and no mixed faction like Hillin's had arisen.

Their small group came upon the training yard where a three of the last spawn groups were already huddled around talking. Doyle, the monstrous crab, was already bouncing on his feet, ready for the day. Samba, on the other hand, had a look of fury on his face that was rarely present on the large otter. The newer spawned clanmates with her turned pale when his gaze turned to them so Tiria just coaxed them to stand with the others.

Samba stomped over and started ranting as soon as he was close enough. "That...," he stopped himself from saying something. "Kumo took three hunters, made them a Squad, and left for the Barrens this morning."

"She doesn't want to lose any more to the catalysts."

"But she's okay losing them to The Barrens?! What's the point of being over training if she won't give me time to train them?"

"Look, I understand. She's not in the right here. I just meant that she's also trying to take care of the clan in her way."

Samba's rage didn't seem ameliorated by that fact, "By stealing my charges right out from under my nose! That's her way!"

"I get it. I understand. I really do. I'll handle it when she gets back. For now, focus on the clan in front of you. They need your wisdom."

Samba glared at her and then glanced towards the newly spawned who were staring at the two of them. He hadn't kept his voice quiet and he was a very large otter. His anger crumpled and he exhaled heavily. "Thanks, Tiria. I know this is hard on you too."

He pulled her in for a quick hug which had gotten much less awkward now since she'd reached level ten and gotten her own Class. Having expressed his frustration, his ever present smile popped back on his face and he started to break the students into pairs. Tiria smiled too. It was great to see the clan growing and learning.

She looked back down at her list and added a note to speak to Kumo. No matter how much she did, the list just didn't get any smaller. She was tired. The last three otters who they'd attempted to ascend their constitution had all died during it. That had hit all of the Elites hard. It was one thing to die in battle and another to die after one of the leaders you trusted handed you an item to make you powerful.

Gi was dissatisfied with their progress on the Classer front. They'd only managed to get two more, one hunter and one templar. That meant they all felt both the pressure and the consequences.

Tiria rubbed her cheek idly as she turned to go towards her next task. As she did, three Child otters burst out of one of the Quarters, giggling and sprinting towards the training grounds. She smiled as Samba's face shifted from a glare to one with hidden delight as his kids came to bother him. As the only Underbridge clan member with kids other than his partner, it was obvious that Samba didn't wait around.

Tiria spent a few hours doing the other half dozen things on her list. Gi found her while she was working with Sculpture, one of the Coastal Goblins, on ensuring the Dragon Pike farm was pushed back far enough for the next few levels of expansion. He took a glance between the two, but didn't comment on their work.

"Tiria, I need you and the tailor to come with me for when we meet with the spiders."

"Of course, Progenitor," she said formally. She knew most everyone just called him "the Boss", but she liked to be proper when there were others around. "When do we go?"

"Right now. Poe's got a lock on their Progenitor. I'll put me, you, the twins, and..."

"Dennen?" She said, providing the name of the tailor to him.

"Dennen, right. All of us into a Squad and then we will head over. I don't expect a fight."

"Of course, I'll meet you at the Crystal."

Gi nodded and then hurried away, assumingly to go take care of the Squad assignment. Tiria looked to her notebook and sighed, realizing she was going to lose the rest of the day to this. She'd be damned if she was coming back for this task though.

"Sculpture," she said and the Coastal Goblin's gaze returned to her from Gi's departing from. "This looks good enough to me. If there are any issues when we hit level four let me know. I think level five might be even larger than the current scale, but it's hard to tell."

"I will. Thank you, Subgenitor," she said. Most of the goblins had been a mess after Jalx's death, but Sculpture had been made of sterner stuff and had been indispensable for tackling their food concerns. Tiria clapped the woman on the shoulder and then hurried off for to the workshop to grab Dennen.

With only a few complaints, Dennen hurried with her and the two made their way to the crystal where Gi and the twins waited for them. Nervously, Dennen gave the sign of the Mother to Gi and he gave a brief acknowledgement before the four of them all swam towards the surface. Since Dennen wasn't a Classer, he had a Wind Fern pressed to his mouth.

When they made it to the surface, rain poured from the sky in a veritable waterfall. For non-Aquatic monsters, the monsoon season was a dreadful time of being stuck inside, but for them, it didn't change much from their day-to-day and it provided a sweet relief to Igna's normally hot and dry atmosphere.

A thin layer of water even sloshed directly against the mountain, but it wasn't enough to completely bury the buildings of Underbridge. It was difficult to speak in the rain though so they just kept heading up Igna, passing the Commons and moving into the Bazaar.

There weren't a ton of monsters out or hawking wares in the open, but that didn't mean there were none. Gi took them towards a section of the Bazaar towards the north side of the mountain that dropped down slightly just before the Commons. He stopped them before a wide overhang and activated his [Concealing Light] ability.

There were plenty of shadows in the monsoon that caused his Skill to emit sparkles all around him, but the constant rain obscured the light, effectively keeping him camouflaged, though not invisible.

"They are just ahead," Gi yelled over the roar of the rain. "Wax and Wane, you're up."

The twins took the lead and Tiria lost Gi for a moment as he moved ahead of them himself. As their group stepped forward, they came upon a handful of spiders surrounding a Deft Golem like Rocky. Other than being the size of half a wagon, the spiders' deep red coloration was the only noticeable difference from a regular one. Except for their deep black eyes, they had a good camouflage for the area around Igna.

The Deft Golem saw them first and the lead Spider followed her eyes to the twins walking towards them in their swaying hypnotic manner.

Who are you? the spider yelled out over the rain.

"We are..."

"...the Underbridge Clan."

"Do you not know us?"

The spider glanced back at the four spiders behind him and if Tiria was reading the spider's expression right glared at the twins. I've heard of the weakest Ground Clan.

"Weak?" Wax looked over at Wane before his twin finished the sentence for him. "For Siht perhaps, but for you...?"

They left that question hanging and the spider again looked back, counting the spiders with them. All five of them were Classers which meant that they'd probably all successfully made it through their Dungeon run, but a monster's stage wasn't everything. Their numbers must have helped solidify the spider's nerves though.

Your threats won't work here. What do you want?

Their angry tone didn't deter the twins at all. This wasn't their first conversion. Even Dennen wasn't concerned about the situation. The disorganized tailor been on raids to the Barrens before and he knew the strength of his clan. The twins swayed as they responded."We require your fealty..."

"...your faith..."

"... and your gold."

That last part enraged the spider Progenitor. Our gold! Why in the First One's asshole would I give you our gold?

"Protection, of course."

And what could the Underbridge Clan protect us from?

Behind them, Gi dropped [Concealing Light]. "From me."

His voice startled the spiders and all of them whipped around to stare at the leader of the Underbridge Clan. Gi wore an ordinary grey robe with his injured arm tucked just above the belt. Wisps of silver in his fur showcased his Unique Constitution and lines of scars poked through his fur from his time in the Child Stage. He looked over them with all the arrogance of a king on his throne.

Y-your tricks won't scare us. I've got all my Elites here. We outnumber you! The spider's internal voice gained some semblance of confidence as he continued speaking, but Gi crushed it.

"Do you?"

Heartbeat by heartbeat, a completely white furred and red-eyed otter appeared beside each of the spiders, Light Aether dripping from the point of their finger, waiting to be released directly into each of their skulls.

Tiria flinched as two more summoned otters appeared, flipping over one of the spider Elites on its back and pinning it down. With his good hand, Gi grabbed one of their legs and pulled it taut, just one small tug from ripping it off its body.

"Why don't we start over?," Gi said calmly as the spider Progenitor now stared up at him in horror. "Now... let's talk about your faith."