...

It had been a few weeks since the eggs hatched, and a lot of the spiders had molted and grown. The black widow archetypes, like the colorful spider and the actual widows- didn't. But that's only because they, and the scorpion, didn't need to! Their armor stretched and expanded as they grew. The wolf spider archetypes- wolf and tarantula- molted and emerged from their old armor bigger than they were before. Everyone had grown about proportional to each other, and instead of being the size of my hand like they were when freshly hatched, they were all the size of large housecats.

I learned that I couldn't directly order any of them to do anything or stop doing anything, but if I used my shoplifting skills and concentrated on their own visual window and felt something strong enough, it would usually influence them. I didn't try this out on purpose, though. I was busy trying to make some paper and I couldn't walk away from the project or it would be ruined. One of the spiders, Malas, had started wandering off, further from the cave entrance than I felt comfortable with. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, in my peripheral vision, just like how I see what all my children are doing. As he went further and further, I tried mentally saying not to go that way, to turn back, to go home, danger, all sorts of things. It was just my own anxiety level that was able to override his own curiosity. Maybe not curiosity, he isn't smart enough to really think that hard. More accurate to say... ignorant meandering? No, that's too mean. Negligent adventuring, I guess.

I failed miserably with my paper anyway. I thought I could get some fresh leaves and lay them out and use some of the flattest rocks I could find to press them like people from my old world would press flowers, but the rocks just weren't flat enough, so they only damaged everything. Also, some parts of the smashed leaves were wet, and some parts dry. I guess the leaves needed to get air to them, but not so much as to let their color fade or the result would be smashed and brittle or wet and moldy. I guess I'd have to invent cardboard first if I wanted to make paper that way.

That, and get some crafted flat stones or metal plates or wooden boards or something.

So I tried something else. I've seen how paper gets recycled, so I thought I'd go with that. It took me forever to even find a big enough rock, let alone grind out its inside and smooth its outside- there was a lot of gravel and stone dust when I was finally done. I had a stone cauldron! With some of the cored boulder I had made a couple other pieces, including a wide-handled coffee cup and a pestle. Mortar? Well, it was a mortar and a pestle. Plus an even bigger set. The corn was nearly grown, and it would have to be ground up in order to make... creamed corn, I guess? I should look for some nuts or something. Sure we don't really need food since the Yuck does that by itself, but we do still need travelling provisions.

Since my children are growing so fast, I thought I'd take some of them with me when we go out to try to make social connections with other species. That whole idea is why I was working so hard on making paper! I'd want it to make a map, but also to be able to trade something. If someone gives you a present then you're less likely to attack them because they're ugly or scary, right? Yeah... not always. Ugh, I hate humans. Hopefully they aren't as bad here. But what good is paper without ink or something? I could use charcoal, and it would work and be easy because I could light a fire with the lantern, but I'd much rather do something else. Ink might be pretty easy.

Using the mortar and pestle, I mixed water and some flowers I found in the forest. It took quite awhile to smoosh the flowers down into a paste, and I used too much water, and the ink was chunky so it probably wasn't all that useful, but at least I tried. Charcoal it is. I was so caught up in making colored ink that I didn't even think about how to store it properly. What, leave it in the bowl? That's stupid.

I washed the bowl and stuff out in the lake, but there wasn't anywhere to really... put it. So I just left it there at the edge of the lake.

...

My children and I drank from the lake by sticking our faces in it, or using our hands. That's what I did, the others didn't have any. Yet. Hopefully they'd get them. There wasn't a perfect balance of not having to eat when we were on the Yuck, so I did have to hunt every once in awhile. There were a few more caterpillars I found, and it seemed to work just fine. I even found some berries that I tasted, and they seemed fine. I laid some out on a rock and instructed my children not to eat them or bring them inside so that way they'd dry out in the sun. Maybe we could grow more of them later on. This kind of behavior went on for a few more weeks.

My babies were all around the size of an average dog by now, and I got a ding in my head while I was out hunting for additional berry types and giant bugs that weren't related to me. "Choose secondary aspect for hunter caste. Choose secondary aspect for architect caste. Choose secondary aspect for guardian caste."

Wait, wait, wait. Guardian? I never designed that. Then again... The other visual windows were black. When did that happen? I couldn't see through my children's eyes! I was pretty far away, maybe a couple miles, when this happened. I had my robe on and three or four plant seeds from some plants that had pretty flower colors, but no fruit. I was dead-set on that ink, once I had the tools to manufacture and refine it properly. I had no idea what my primary, secondary, or tertiary aspects were myself, so choosing it for my children was difficult. Even worse was not knowing whether or not I, as I am, would be acceptable. But I know that no one would wake up or emerge from their cocoons if I didn't make a choice.

"I choose human as the secondary aspect for all of them." I said out loud, hoping that it was the right choice. The computer, if that's what it was, and I had no reason to think it wasn't, was pretty... stupid. I had used computers before that were a bit more lenient on input command acceptance. Then again, this one was more of a government's paperwork being filled out and filed, and less like a video game's artificial intelligence. I tried a few other statements, but I didn't get any response. After a few minutes of continued attempts, my peripheral vision got its little windows to open again, and I knew that I said something right, but I had no idea what it was.

If anyone was listening, I'd probably look like those crazy people back on Earth who wandered around talking to themselves, or no one. I guess it didn't matter. I knew I was talking to someone and somebody, or something was listening. But then again, I guess they did, too. I didn't rush back to the cave, but I didn't get sidetracked this time. It took me over an hour- I didn't realize how far I really went. It clearly wasn't two miles, but more like eight. It wasn't a straight path, either. Sometimes I had to go around a thick growth of trees so tightly packed that I was surprised they could even get sunlight, or a group of small but crazy-looking animals that I'm sure attacked in packs. Yes they were smaller than me, but I don't think that really matters if someone were to be attacked by fifty feral cats. You would lose. You would lose, and look like an idiot for doing so, even if no one else would fare better.

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A pale-skinned female walked out of the cave as I approached it. She had long red hair, smooth and straight, but it looked coarse. She had abyssal black eyes, and smallish dots on the sides of each, in a gentle arc swinging back in between her temple and ear. She didn't smile, or say anything. Her arms mostly just lay almost flat against her sides. Her thick spider legs looked much stronger and harder than they did when she was a tarantula. "Djraine?" I asked.

She looked at me. I didn't see her eyes move, because they didn't work that way, but she did turn her head to look at me directly. She walked up to me, and reached out her front right leg and right arm at the same time, and rested them on me. Then she pulled back. I gave her a hug like a human would give to another. I squeezed. I didn't let go until I realized that there was a man behind her with overlapping black plates on his forehead and scalp where hair would have been.

He had human-looking eyes, though. The pupil and iris were the same color of pitch black, though he was pale too. I walked back and let everyone know that I wanted them to come out so I could see them in the light! The lantern was totally useless at the amount of detail I wanted to see. I'd have to find a way to get better lighting or copy the lantern or something. I had investigated it earlier- it had what looked like a little glass flask in it, which is where you would normally put lantern oil. It was empty, and didn't smell- so it was probably always empty. But it was still burning. Maybe a magical effect.

Sting still had his scorpion claws, just like the spiders all still their pedipalps. Besides for their insect eyes and some chitinous plating on some of the spiders and Sting, their human parts didn't look inhuman at all. That's what I thought, until I noticed something small. Djraine and Malas had little red (they were both redheads) patches of short hairs on the bottom of their forearms. They were hard and rough, and they scratched me a little if I pet them the wrong way, but the right way and they were smooth.

Seeing my unnamed spider's new drider form, I knew what she should be named. It was so obvious now! Her name was Sun. Sun spiders were creepy-looking and I didn't like them, but that isn't what she was. She was originally an orb weaver; I just thought Sun was a good name, for some reason. She responded to it, and so it was settled. She still had a lot of the patterning she used to have; just it was a bit more exciting to look at now. It was almost like she had tigress lines and somewhat like she was wearing clothing of banded colors- but she wasn't wearing anything. No one was except me.

...

It took me about a month, but I had finally taught everyone how to talk, although in very crude ways. They primarily liked to just give emotional signals through our hivemind to each other. It worked, and it worked really well, but it was more important, I thought, to be able to communicate verbally if we wanted to talk to anyone else. The cave was starting to get a little bit cramped, though. Luckily everyone except Sting were able to sleep upside-down in the main corridor or back chamber.

The first thing I had taught them was how to eat with their human mouths. We weren't in a rush because the Yuck kept us fed while we were home, but since they didn't have insect mouths anymore, they'd need to know. I also taught them how to cup their hands to drink, or just use the bowl. It took awhile to get them to understand that without dropping it directly into the mud of the lake once they finished drinking with it.

The corn had grown, and I taught one of the architects how to farm the next cycle. The corn wasn't corn, though. It was actually maize! An old version of corn, before it was selectively bred into yellow corn. The seeds had been various off-shades of yellowish brown, but I thought it was because my pockets were dirty. It wasn't; it was because it was maize. I tried to get Shore to understand to separate the colors of seed when harvesting the ears, but it didn't work. Maybe he would understand later. I thought that since it was maize, I could develop it like was done on Earth- white sweet corn, yellow corn, and blue corn. Maybe even baby corn! Probably not, though. I don't know if that was actually even corn.

Aneis didn't want to come out with us- she liked staying at home. So, I taught her how to... well, I tried to teach her how to weave something other than silk. She learned quickly! She was pretty good at combining corn silk and spidersilk into something else. I also tried to teach her what I was trying to do with the paper, but she didn't understand it as well as she'd need to. At least I was able to get her to understand how to collect dry leaves and crumple them up into flakes. I instructed her to just put the dry leaf flakes into the dried-out cauldron, so she did.

While out hunting for... who knows what, really... I just wanted everyone to get to see what there was and what our territory was now that I learned it- there was a stream at the far right, which wasn't very fun. Not much of anything there, really. There were some seashells, so we took some back. Some looked similar to clam- wide and smooth one one side. They could probably be used for stuff. I figured the seashells were there because the area used to be something different, but then I found out I was wrong. There, in a deeper part of the stream, were what looked like mussels from a distance. For some reason, when the shells were wet, they were black, and when they weren't, they were grayish white. I didn't want them in my lake, though. I had other plans for it. On the way back, I happened across a miraculous sight! Up in between two trees was what looked like a bee's nest. I didn't see any bees in it, though. Instead of ignoring it, I started to climb up, and Mels came with me. She didn't understand what I was doing, but she came anyway. I pulled on the nest, but it didn't want to budge. So, I started clawing the tree where the nest was attached, and Mels did the same on her side. We got it apart, and she took it down while I paid more attention to climbing. She used her web.

Once it was in my hands, I knew it was made of wax. That, or something similar enough that it might as well be. I could use this. We went home. I thought about how I could do something to be able to produce more wax on our own. What could be done with it, how to add it to our ability repertoire, all sorts of functions! When we finally arrived, I asked Mels for the hive- and she bumped me with a small clump of something wet. I turned to look, as she had been following me along with the others, and saw that she had been eating it the entire trip! There just wasn't much of anything left. Thanks a lot, Mels.

Out of my eleven children, seven had names now. The others didn't do anything that made them stand out in any spectacular way, and they weren't in my way enough to make me get frustrated and think of a name to yell at them to get them to move. I made... uneducated guestimizations on what everyone's class was, if I didn't already know it for sure. Class, for the most part, I decided was a job title or serious personality trait or skill set. I figure everyone would have some sort of classification soon, but I've always been bad with names. They were:

Mels: Female black widow drider. Hunter caste. Worker.

Sting: Male emperor scorpion drider. Guardian caste. Butcher.

Djraine: Female rose hair tarantula drider. Hunter caste. Dexxer.

Aneis: Female black widow drider. Architect caste. Seamstress.

Malas: Male rose hair tarantula drider. Hunter caste. Ignoramus.

Sun: Female orb weaver drider. Architect caste. Designer.

Shore: Male black widow drider. Architect caste. Farmer.

Finally comfortable with everyone's safety and self-sufficiency, I left the cave. I figure I had learned enough, and the territory for those annoying scalewolves dipped inward and we could walk around it if we went far enough out first. I didn't know what was past the forest, but I was confident I could figure it out. I found my hoe, which was very dirty now, even on its handle, which I brushed off, and put on my robe. I gave my shirt to Djraine to put on for now, and I gave Sun my towel to drape over shoulders. The others I left at home. I was going to take Mels, but after she ate my treasure, I decided she needed to be punished. Not with a punishment, but with a lack of a reward. So she didn't get to go have fun and adventure. The three of us drider went off on a hunt. A hunt for... we'd have to figure it out when we got there.