“Huh.” Fia said, staring at the windows of the two Titles she had. Her vision flickered for a second as her bottom pair of eyes blinked. “Hey, Lord Fellwood? You know how earlier you said you saw such great potential in me and that one day I’d be super strong and all that?”
“I said no such thing. It it not guaran-”
“I see what you mean, now.” She said, sharing the windows.
“I already knew most of the effects of the first Title. Like I said before, we are neighbors and fellow immortals, now. The second Title is good. It will be a great boon and benefit to you. The effect seems simple, but it will massively increase the speed of your growth and you would be much stronger than peers of your own level. If you had a normal class. Dungeon Masters are all each so different and unique it is really hard to compare them after the first class evolution, nevermind any that come after.”
Fia thought about this in silence for a few moments. It was crazy. Yesterday, she had been a [Bandit], because that’s the class her Awakening Stone had given her. It was a really, really shitty Awakening Stone that would cap her off at E tier / copper rank, but at least she was Awakened. She thought. Until the damn stone gave her the [Bandit] class. They say that Awakening Stones give you the class most compatible with your soul, and being a [Bandit] doesn’t automatically mean ambushing merchants in the woods and pillaging weak villages. You can totally join a guild and be an adventurer and delve into dungeons as a [Bandit]. Unfortunately, there are social ramifications to having the class, and due to a variety of circumstances, the [Bandit] was forced to become a bandit. Which had been the death of her, in the end.
And now, she was no longer who she used to be. She lost that accursed class, and instead became something the common person would argue is even eviler. She is no longer even human, at least on the outside. Though she is starting to suspect that due to being Fated, that includes on the inside, too. No matter, she’d make the best of this situation
“So,” Fia started, stretching her arms up above her head, fingers interlaced, not even caring about the view she was flashing the lich at this point. He didn’t seem to care either. “This is going to be my new home, now, I take it?”
“Until you can find a way to move your core, yes.”
“Well in that case, sorry about my lack of hospitality,” She half-bowed. “For I seem to have a dire lack of worldly possessions at the moment… Wait, actually. Where are my clothes, pack, and sword? I did have some stuff. I wasn’t naked when I got ambushed.”
“Perhaps some exploration of this cave is in order. I will leave you to that.”
“You’re leaving, already?” Fia asked, unsure how she felt about that. She didn’t expect the lich to stay long, and in fact, it is genuinely surprising it helped her at all. But once he left she’d be alone. As weird as it was, Lord Fellwood has acted as a rock of sorts in this chaotic situation. If he hadn’t been here, well, she’s not sure what she would be doing. Probably still freaking out about the spider body.
“I will return on the morrow. Perhaps with some small, useful, gifts.”
“Can I give you a shopping list?”
“I am not your errand boy, nor your servant. In fact, it is you who are indebted to me.”
“I will be further in your debt if you could bring some tools. A pick, a hammer, an axe. Sure, I could scrounge the forest like a goblin and make some stone tools, perhaps. Some tools to start off with would be a boon, however.”
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“You would not prefer for some adventurers to come by, or maybe for some goblins to wander in, and loot them? Start from scratch, like most dungeon masters would?”
“I am not an established dungeon yet, they don’t even know I am here. It would be up to random chance.”
“On the contrary, human scouting parties have been scouring these woods every couple of weeks. I even told you before, I was expecting a new dungeon to emerge here, soon. So are they. It is about time this leyline convergence spawned a new one.” The lich said, before a black rectangle opened up in the air, next to it. Like a doorway into the void, it was pure, featurelessly black, and completely silent. “However, I will accept your willingness to throw yourself into further debt, and see what I can spare for you.”
And then she was alone. She let out a long, deep, sigh, and her legs slid out from under her, playing out around her like a spider doing the splits, as her human upper half lay down bare-chested against the cool, smooth stone covered in a fine layer of spider silk. She was tired. It’d only been an hour or so since she woke up, but it was a supremely mentally exhausting one. Learning all her new Skills and Perks, learning about what she was now, and trying to speak formally with the lich, though she did slip a few times… Was all exhausting.
After a few moments, she took her cheek off of the cold stone and looked up to see a small spider hanging next to her face, silently on a single strand of web coming straight down from the ceiling.
“You again, huh? Did ya finish the chest wrap?” She asked, looking to where the spider had been working. There was a large regular spider web with a rectangle of much denser webbing stuck in the middle. Transparent and thin, it looked supremely fragile, but she was shocked the little spider had managed this much in only an hour. She checked her own vitals to see that her mana had restored fully, so she decided to summon a new helper for the little common spider. Activating [Spawn Monster], she summoned a [Web Weaver] this time. She wasn’t sure what kind of spider it was, but the name implied it’d be good at the job she wanted to give it. This time, as the multicolored rainbow fire coalesced in her palm, the spider that was left behind was the size of her entire hand, rather than the tiny fingernail-sized spider that was the common spider. Where the [Common Spider] was ordinary and brown, the [Web Weaver] had a white body, with black legs with white stripes at the joints. It looked like a huge orb weaver in body shape, with its actual body being about an inch long, but its leg span was slightly larger than her entire hand. She could see how a spider this big would be efficient at building webs. While the [Common Spider] cost her 10 mana points to summon, this [Web Weaver] cost her 50. Her entire mana pool.
“Whew. You two are probably the only things I can even summon right now, huh?” She whistled. “Alright you two, continue working on that chest wrap. I want it ten times as thick as it is.” She ordered. That’d probably last the two of them several hours, depending on how fast the weaver could work, but that was fine. She was alone now, and as long as it was done before the lich would be back tomorrow, it would be okay.
With that out of the way, it was time to explore. The cave was very dark, as little sunlight was filtering through the entrance now, and the Dungeon Core gave off the faintest glow of a candle. She couldn’t move it either. It floated in place, not touching anything, but when she tried to grasp it and move it, it felt like trying to bend a steel bar. She shrugged. Her bottom eyes had the [Lowlight Vision] Perk, and if she closed her normal, middle, eyes, she could see in the dark a bit better with just the bottom two. She was right of the cave entrance, or left to someone walking in, but on the other side of the cave she could see an opening where the cave seemed to continue. Her low-light eyes had incredibly poor color vision, with everything looking very desaturated, but with the gray stone of the cave that hardly mattered. She decided to walk into the cave’s depths, staying near the left wall so she wouldn’t get lost. However, after about five minutes, she noticed a dark pile stacked up on the ground, in a “room” that was really more of an inset, furthest from the entrance. She gently felt around, and she felt fabric and the cold bite of steel as something tried to slice open the meat where the thumb connects to the hand. Hissing, she brought her hand to her mouth, expecting to taste blood, though her thumb was undamaged.
This must be the Arachne’s little ‘loot room.’ She reached out again, this time moving her hand much, much slower. She wiggled her fingers around, letting her long, sharp, fingernails be the probes. She heard them tap against steel and scraped against fabric, and lightly thunk on some wood. Slowly, she used her fingernails on both hands to separate the wooden thing from the pile. Once it was sitting alone on the stone floor, she gently felt around it, still wary of any sharp bits. A wooden bucket. She set it to the side and began feeling out the next item.