My mind wandered into various territories that weren't fun as I made my way back home. Once I arrived, I couldn't help but feel bad about all the fire and axe damage, which still had a long way to recover. Actually, maybe I could go look around that hermit spider forest for some seeds from those trees- they grew much more densely packed than mine did. They probably grew a lot faster, too.

As I entered the cave, I couldn't help but start to get annoyed at the skeletal remains of the melted mammoth. The other bones strewn around should probably have something done with them too. In a game I played there was some civilization that ground bones into dust and forged them into pretty interesting armor, but that wasn't really what I felt like doing.

There were the hills on the Eastern and Western edges of my rectangular forest seemed like decent places to dig a big burial pit, and if I found some seeds from the darklings the jumi grew (though I never saw any trace of the plants to begin with), then even better. Really, I just cared about cleaning the place up and making it a little fancier, but not so fancy as to invite other sapient life forms to consider themselves welcome.

Djraine came up to me, not happy. "Aneis died. Can you stay?"

Of course she didn't want to be alone. I remembered again when she died herself before she was reborn in this world exactly how it happened. She had torn off one of her legs when she tried to molt, but her claws on that foot were broken off in an injury, and as she bled to death, she came up to the side of the cage and got my attention. I put my hand in there like I thought she wanted, and she only put her other front leg on my hand, backed up, and sat down. That was a hug goodbye from a giant spider if ever there was one. I did notice that she came up to the side of the cage again and stared at me, but I didn't turn around or pick her up to let her die in my hand- she died with my back turned. I didn't want her to be so sad again in this life, so of course I would stay with her as much as she wanted.

"Yes, I'll stay. We do have some cleaning to do though, so how about you come with me while I do it? Plus, I could use the help since I only have one useful hand now and can't carry very much."

She gave me a hug again, but as a drider, it was with human arms.

"By the way, did the eggs hatch yet?"

"No, but I was watching them."

Someone else came up to me before the conversation could continue.

"Parent? Can you come? Lyre is complaining."

"I'm on my way, Dulcet. Djraine, could you get Laina for us? She's over at the place we used to have birds." I cheated by finally allowing myself to look at the computer-like windows in my head. There was one window that just had a black screen with a ripped-in-half image file icon, showing there was nothing on the other end and wasn't going to be. Two of the screens though, showed a loading circle like when a video buffer was preparing itself or something.

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Lyre was outside, sitting next to the pond. Part of the tree that was cut down was sitting nearby, acting almost like a desk, or at least Lyre resting her arm on it, and her head on her arm, made it look that way. As I approached, she sensed me and groggily looked up.

"Hey, Lyre. Your twin sister tells me you're not feeling good. What's going on?" Dulcet and Lyre weren't identical twins. They weren't even the same type of spider. Dulcet was a black wolf drider, and Lyre was a black widow drider, but they were always together, were born at the same moment, and acted much the same, so it was close enough.

She held up the nub where her hand once was, and I showed her mine. Hers looked like it was welted and bruised, where mine didn't. "Why are you outside so often after getting hurt anyway?", I asked her.

"I don't know. It feels better if I'm out here."

Laina came up to us alongside Djraine. "Laina, Dulcet, could you keep Lyre in the cave? Hopefully she'll get better on her own." I then noticed Laina had a large leaf, almost like a banana leaf, which was odd since I hadn't seen any anywhere, with some little berries piled in the middle. She saw me staring, and answered.

"I forgot what the plants the old lady at the village used looked like, so I have these."

"Oh, you're trying to figure out herbalism?"

She looked confused. "You showed me putting leaves on injuries is good, and the lady made good things with berries and other small plants. I watched!"

"Okay, good girl. I'm proud of you. Djraine, do you wanna help me throw the bones away?"

Her face lit up, and so it was time to go. Carrying what we could, we set off to the East.

...

It was well into the night when we heard it. Metal chains clanging, echoing through the semi-empty part of the forest. The 'scary' spawned like normal, but there weren't many of them surprisingly enough. However, giant centipedes didn't wear prisoner shackles nor walk with such a gait as the sound described for us.

"Eeesh!" The... well, I wasn't sure what it was that was wearing those chains. The sound came from near one of the trees, and the thick trunk cast enough of a shadow as to totally hide whatever it was. It sounded big, but the tree was bigger.

"Who is there?" I yelled.

Clanging continued. It was close enough now that I could hear the chains clinging against each other as they dragged on the ground.

"Djraine, back up. I wanna see what this is." We got back far enough that the moon should reveal whatever it was once it passed out from under the tree's shadow.

Once it came close enough, I still couldn't see it... per se. It was a vaguely humanoid shadow, made out of smoke or mist or something, but it was wearing thick cast iron chains that looked like they belonged to a boat's anchor. Not super thick chain like for a battleship, but just for a sailboat. Still impressively heavy for a cloud to wear.

"Eesh!" The sound it made sounded more like steam releasing from a valve combined with heavy gears grinding together than talking. It changed stance, looking like a football player preparing to ram into someone. Black smoke, even darker than the other smoke it was made of, billowed upwards from between where its shoulders and neck should be, almost like diesel exhaust pipes on a humanoid truck. The smoke didn't dissipate or go anywhere; it only curled back into itself.

I didn't look- I simply grabbed downward and threw whatever was in my hand at the, uh, smoke beast? It caught on fire as it flew and squirmed! I hadn't used fire magic in awhile, and I somehow forgot how it worked. The flaming, flailing centipede smacked into the chain wrapped around the beast's chest, and the light from the fire seemed to do more than the fire itself did.

The chains collapsed on the ground along with the 'scary' a moment later. I figured there would be some crazy thing going on and it would be a big fight, but I guess a simple flashlight would have been enough to vanquish this creature. A single bug-filled fireball was good enough too, apparently.

"That creature seemed weak."

I had to agree with Djraine. Appearances didn't really matter, for the most part.