Fia watched the elf she held captive wearily. The day before yesterday, after the second attack on her dungeon, she had decided to spare the elf temporarily. It was mainly luck and stats that he hadn’t died during it, but afterwards when she noticed that he had been on the door to death, she had her ettercaps perform some very primitive sewing and bandaging with some webbing. Then she had them hang him upside down from the cave ceiling by his feet. During his time unconscious, she had taken her chance to use [Identify] on the elf.
[Herbalist]
Level 120
Awakened Elf
An elf adult with a Scholar class and a Herbalist class. Very dangerous to you at your current level.
Interesting, but nothing vitally important. She already knew he had been high level. You could tell by how people moved. Higher agility and dexterity does that to you, even if you aren’t a combat-classer. In the end, she had left a newly summoned [Common Spider] on the elf with orders to notify her when he woke up, and it had taken the elf over 40 hours to wake up. Even ignoring the health damage done to him, anyone of a lower tier who took that kind of beating would have easily died whilst unconcious afterwards. It was the beginning of the ‘tyranny of stats’ at play.
Now, the elf had been awake for about an hour, doing little but dangling upside down and occasionally groaning quietly due to trying and failing to do an upside down sit-up to presumably untie the web snare around his ankles.
Watching from the shadows, Fia thought about confronting him, but she was honestly not sure what she would say, nor what he would do. “Why did you attack my home?” Well, that one is obvious, it’s a new dungeon and people had already died in it. “Who are you?” She didn’t really care, to be quite honest. “Who sent you?” Obviously one of the nearby adventurer’s guilds. She had surprised herself nearly as much as she had surprised him when a question finally left her lips.
“What day is it?”
The elf, for his credit, didn’t scream or anything, though he did tense up in an obviously startled jump while sucking in a sharp breath of air. He craned his neck to look behind himself at Fia, and she guessed he could see her despite the darkness, as he looked straight at her. After a minute of still silence from both parties, the elf finally responded.
“I could ask you the same. How long was I out?”
“You attacked my dungeon the day before yesterday.”
“Then it is the 11th of Frostfall, I believe.”
Fia nodded, but didn’t respond. 24 days. Two and a half weeks, basically, since she died and became an arachne and dungeon master.
“So. What are your plans for me? I’m not in a cocoon, which is nice, but I do dearly hope I’m not about to be fed to a bunch of spider monsters.”
Fia smacked her teeth in annoyance, now. “I haven’t decided on that yet, but if you’re useful, maybe we can avoid such an outcome.”
“Forgive me, Ms. Arachne. I’m not sure how-”
“I have a name. Fia. Fia Rush. Don’t call me ‘Ms. Arachne.’ And I am the ruler of this domain, so you will address me as a Lady.”
The elf was silent for a minute before responding.
“Forgive me, Lady Rush.” The elf said, and it gave Fia a slight smile. Sure, it was petty, and to most very rude. A 100 level difference in most places would mean that the higher tiered person was of higher social status and rank, and she wasn’t officially a [Noble] or anything either, but the lich, Lord Fellwood, had said it himself; she has more claim to this dungeon in the System’s eyes than most nobles do to their own land. “I am not well versed in arachne culture and customs, but to me your name sounds very… Human.” The elf finished, and it caused Fia to cringe.
“It does, doesn’t it? Maybe I should change it. I quite like my first name, but maybe since I’m an arachne now I should choose an arachne last name? Do arachne even have last names?” Fia wondered out loud to herself, ignoring the elf’s incredulous but curious look. “What about you, elf? What’s your name?”
“Island Greendew, Lady Rush. If I may…” The elf paused.
“Go on.”
“Were you not born an arachne?”
Fia glared at the elf. It was a fair question, and one she herself had led him to by saying “since I’m an arachne now,” but it still stung a little. She thought she had been over her transformation, and completely okay with her new body, but looking down at her spider-half, and seeing the slightly translucent, pale white alabaster skin on her human half, when her old skin tone was so much darker, still gave her mixed feelings. Her new hair, now starting to grow out, was as snow-white as the webs created by her and her spiders, when it used to be fiery red. Her fingernails, usually trimmed and unpainted, were now pure black, long and sharpened like claws. She ran her tongue over her teeth. Her teeth, for 19 years of her life, had always been flat with two sharp canines, like any other human, were now all sharp, every last one of them. She blinked her ‘middle’ set of eyes, causing the world to flash a tiny bit brighter for a second. Her ‘middle’ set of eyes would normally be where eyes were on a human or elf, but she had six eyes now, the top tiny two eyes of which she never opened due to them being blind. Her bottom set of eyes blinked afterwards, causing the world to flash a bit darker for a second as her [Lowlight Vision] was cut off. She took a deep breath in, and though her human chest expanded, she didn’t feel lungs fill with air in her human chest. It was an instinctual imitation, she felt the air travel through her human body, into much larger lungs in her spidery bottom half. She put a hand over her chest and didn’t feel a heartbeat there, either. She didn’t even know where her real heart was anymore. Or her brain.
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“No. I used to be human.” She missed it, a bit. Just a bit.
“What happened to you?”
“I was attacked by arachne, I guess. I don’t really remember it. I just remember waking up in excruciating pain, veins filled with venom, and touching a weird crystal before dying. Turns out, it was a dungeon core, and it brought me back to life, though now as an arachne instead of a human.”
The elf’s eyebrows shot up, or down from her view, since he was hanging upside down. “That’s a lot to take in. It brought you back to life? It changed your species? Obviously, the first creature to touch a dungeon core becomes the dungeon master, it is known, but I was not aware-”
“I haven’t even decided you will leave this cave with that information.” She sighed, palming her face and dragging it down, stretching the skin under all four of her eyes, before counter-stretching the skin above her eyes with her fingers. Carefully, avoiding a case of finger-nail-claws-to-the-eyes.
“Aren’t you scared of me? I’m a spider-monster. I’m Fated. I’m evil.” Fia finally asked. She realized exactly why this entire conversation felt weird as fuck to her. If she had been in his shoes, she definitely would be.
“I knew a Fae once. A Dryad. All Fae are Fated beings, so she was no exception. Sure, she had some compulsions she could not ignore even if she wanted to. If someone said they would harm her mushroom, she would fly into a rage. If they actually attempted to harm it, she would stop at nothing to see them dead. Humans and elves, we can choose suicide. Fated beings can’t. Freewilled beings can choose to forgive any transgression. Fated beings have lines that cannot be crossed. Freewilled can commit heinous horrible acts, and then atone and change their ways, never to retread that path again. Fated cannot.
Yes, there are differences, important ones. But outside of those restrictions, those curses, she was a normal girl. We would laugh and talk and we were good friends. Would she lay down her life for me, as other Elf friends I had would? No, she couldn’t, it was literally impossible. Did that make her selfish or evil? No, not in my eyes.”
It was Fia’s turn to look incredulous, now. There were some dots to connect there, she thought. The elf obviously knew more than her on this topic. Between Island Greendew and Lord Fellwood, she was starting to feel incredibly uneducated. Well, this elf was a scholar, and the lich was a several millenia old lich…
“Look, I’ll be frank.” Fia said, finally. “I don’t trust you. But I need help, and you need to live. Swear to the gods you’ll help me, and I’ll let you live. That’s basically what this situation boils down to.”
“What exactly do you need help with?”
“Information. I have another source, but you’d be a good one. But more importantly, an errand boy. I cannot go to towns and cities. I can’t go to markets and buy the things I need. Help me, and I’ll pay you. I’m a Dungeon Master, I can create loot, you know. And you’ll get to live. It’s a good deal. Also, I need you to talk to whatever guild sent you. Tell them I’m willing to negotiate. I don’t want to be wiped out.”
It was a shaky proposition, to be sure. She couldn’t trust this elf. He could go back, tell everyone she was an incredibly dangerous and bloodthirsty dungeon who would kill anyone who entered. Sure, it didn’t guarantee she’d be exterminated, there were other very dangerous dungeons in the world that were kept around because of their loot or other reasons, but she didn’t want to chance it. She’d do what she could, use whatever moves she could. Right now, this elf would be a move to take, but if they decided to exterminate her anyways for killing a few tin and copper-ranks, then she’d fight back with everything she had. What the elf said next surprised her, though.
“Sure. I swear to my patron gods, Feyriel, God of Elves, and Mycelial, God of Fungi, that I will give you what information I can, help you with errands for fair pay, and negotiate with the guild on your behalf as well as I am able to, in exchange for my life and safety in this dungeon, release from captivity, and further fair future dealings between us.”
To the elf’s credit, it was a great swear. It was not magically binding, as it wasn’t an actual contract or [Geas], nor was he a [Cleric] who would be bound to his word for the gods, but it was the absolute best Fia could possibly get in this situation. Besides, even if it wasn’t magically binding, pissing off the gods by going back on a deal you swore in their presence wasn’t a smart move to do for anyone.
Island Greendew must’ve noticed the look of surprise on Fia’s face, because he followed up with his semi-oath a second later. “I’m not from Alldredge and I’ve no real love or loyalty to the Adventurer’s Guild there. I only take occasional contracts to help fund my herbalism and deepdark studies, and if helping you is financially stable, why not? My scholar class is about studying underground creatures, too. Your terms were decently fair, if not a little threatening, and you could still kill me either way at the moment, so agreeing and following through with them is indeed my best bet. It took little thought.”
Well, his motives made sense, and he already gave her some good information. It was the kingdom of Alldredge’s Adventurer’s Guild that sent him here. With that, Fia reluctantly let the elf down and out of his snare, though she still kept several ettercaps near the cave walls in the room, just in case.
Time to start with his side of the deal. “Let’s start with the information.”