The walk back didn't take any more or less time than it did getting there. It was actually rather obnoxious to find the broken cart again though... I thought there was only one stream along the way, but there were actually several.

We more or less had to remake the cart... well, wagon, from scratch. But since the only material we used was spiderweb, and we encased each of the wooden pieces almost entirely, it was fine. It was still rickety, but at least we were able to pull it with us! I wondered if there were horses or just the cute bird-mounts, but all that really mattered is we were able to recover it. I should have cared more about what was inside; but I thought that my children could maybe get inspired by some broken whats-it, so we even brought what had since become trash.

The big question in my mind was how to turn the little spiders I found and caught into drider like us... They were too small to use utricating hairs on, not just because of accuracy, but damage. A needle to a human is painful but effectively nothing; the same size needle on a creature 1/1000th the size would be like a ballista bolt.

That one guy we caught had been fed and given water, but he certainly didn't seem to like the interaction. I was able to watch all of it from the vision I shared with Aneis, who was surprisingly attentive. I loved that black widow, and couldn't help but remember how I met her again. Everyone deserved a chance at life- but only a chance. Not an enabler's guarantee of life even after one proved themselves to be undeserving of it.

...

We got to the jumi city we were familiar with, and got a few strange looks from a couple people I had gotten to know a little. I explained to them that the duke (I never did figure out that guy's real rank) wouldn't be forcing them to give unrealistic taxes anymore, and wouldn't be forcing everyone into military service either. Everyone seemed happy, but then I unfortunately had to destroy it by telling them that everyone that was conscripted was probably already dead.

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...

I definitely wanted to rest, and I couldn't imagine that the daughters that came with me didn't feel the same way. Whatever it was about that stuff I created that grew all over the inside of the cave area, I don't know, but being in contact with it at least every other day kept our strength and energy up.

Shore had been working on maize crops more, and I had a thought. If ridiculous over-complication turned everyday abilities or basic activities into special attacks and things, maybe I should come up with some annoying way to have him plow and shuck. Who knows what might happen? But then again, if I was going to do that, there wasn't a reason I shouldn't come up with a few other tedious things for the others to do, too. Somehow it seemed as though the only one of us other than me that had found an ability was Malas!

I had figured that the best thing I could do was also the least efficient. With how small the caught spiders were, I could only really imagine getting them to make webs, or take over some of ours, inside the cave where the Yuck already spread, and just catch moths and live normally until they died- then rely on gaining their aspects. Instead of bothering with much more today, I just went to sleep.

The next day, I thought just take Shore with me to the village. They might have some sort of farming knowledge and plants, and might know something about the seeds we collected along the way out of the spiderweb walled path leading out. Once we got there and started asking around, no one knew what the seeds were or if they were edible or even if they had healing properties or anything. A couple of the seeds looked vaguely familiar to me, but most didn't. Since no one knew anything, I just gave them a few maize seeds, while Shore explained how to use them.

I wasn't paying attention as to why, but Cletus seemed to need me, so it was time to go back home. If only it was faster to go between the two settlements... ah well. We got back later that day, probably faster since we had a good path and familiarity now. One of the birds was doing something funny, and no one understood what was going on. Not even the still-bound jumi.