My loud exclamation woke up Vel. I felt her stir below me.

"Lis," she mumbled. "Lis?"

"I'm here," I said and took her hand in mine.

"Lis!" She opened her eyes. "You're …"

"I'm fine," I smiled, "just feeling a bit cold."

Vel smiled at my joke, it was a good sign. I disentangled my hands from hers and tried to push myself upwards. My spider legs wouldn't respond and I didn't have the faintest idea of how to move them. I settled on getting the reminder of my elven body upright. Vel tried to help me but I stopped her.

I had to figure out this body. I managed to awkwardly get part of the way through then I discovered which new muscles I needed to flex. Where my former legs would have been. I pulled on them and righted myself.

It was progress.

I felt the cold metal of my storage amulet against my skin. It was the only thing I had on.

"You're the tall one now," I playfully said.

My head barely reached Vel's hips. I motioned for her to come closer. She looked like she needed a hug and to be fair, I did too. She crouched in front of me and took me in an embrace. I felt myself relax at her touch. All four of my arms held her close. I rested my head in the crook of her neck.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

She ran her hand through my hair.

We stayed like this for a while. Just being close.

Eventually, my stomach growled loudly.

"I'll prepare something," Vel said, "I'm starving too."

"You're the best," I gave her a kiss and let go, "I'll try to figure out how legs work."

She gave me a nod and walked a few paces away. There, she started setting up a small camp. I tore my eyes off her. I needed to tend to my own problems. First of which was, clothes. Gaia had dumped my entire armor inside my amulet. I pulled out my chest bindings first. I was sure Vel enjoyed the show but I still felt a little too exposed. It turned out that having four arms did not make putting on a bra easier.

After that, I pulled out my armor undershirt and threw it on. I realized my folly a few seconds later. There were only two arm holes. I cursed Gaia, again, and pulled out my dagger to … improve the garment before putting it on again. My mother would probably scold me if she could see what I'd done.

With some clothes on, I started to examine myself in more detail. My elf body was connected to the front of the thorax, where the head would usually be located. Starting at my hips, my skin changed into a rubbery texture covered in black hairs. I ran my hand through them and they felt silky and smooth to the touch. At my back, the change arched upwards a bit covering my former posterior.

On my spine I could feel a segmented carapace leading all the way up to my neck. I bent backwards expecting it to limit my movement. Instead, I managed to touch my thorax with my hands. I turned my torso around left and right, rolled my shoulders. The small plates didn't seem to get in the way.

"Having fun," Vel asked.

"Lots," I replied in a flat tone.

I went back to examining my front. There, the transition followed the curve of where my legs would have been. The hairs were fairly dense there and I checked with my hand. It looked like the transformation had preserved my vagina, for some reason. Not that I was going to complain about it. I decided to keep this discovery to myself for the moment.

Speaking of legs, it looked like they had been replaced by two pedipalps. I felt my way around the two limbs with my hands. They had three segments, the first two had shorter hairs on them while the third had a carapace plate facing outwards. The plates were matte black with golden accents and slotted into more of them at my side protecting my front. Underneath the pedipalps, I found the chelicerae. Two fangs on smaller segmented arms.

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I practiced moving my pedipalps for a few minutes until I got the hang of it. The process was slower than with my arms. I had no point of reference to base things on. I managed some basic movements and could use the small claws at the end to grasp at things.

Before I could start with my legs. Vel brought me a bowl filled with heavenly smelling food. I shot a worried glance at the door but found it closed. Vel must have closed it at some point while I was unconscious. I used my lower set of hands to hold the bowl.

"Thanks," I said, "this smells like heaven."

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After three servings, my hunger finally subsided.

"I've never seen you eat that much," Vel said.

She was to my right, leaning against me, and I had put my right arms around her waist.

"I guess turning into a half-spider gives you a big appetite."

"Do you need some help with …" She vaguely gestured at my behind.

"I probably do," I admitted, "I have no idea how to move my legs."

"How does that work? You managed to figure out the ones in front."

"I had to move them around and feel how they worked."

"You were thinking of doing the same with your legs?"

"Yes, if you can lift them."

"Shouldn't be too hard, right?"

"Only one way to find out," I chuckled.

I turned my upper half around and looked behind me. My thorax was fairly large, around a meter at its widest and one and a half in length. Behind it was my abdomen, I couldn't see it in full but it looked to be between two and three times the width of my thorax. Resting on the ground, it reached around the level of my head.

I ran a hand through the long fuzzy black hairs on my thorax. My legs connected to the bottom, four on each side. Like my pedipalps, they were covered in short hairs and had carapace plating facing outwards on all but the first segment.

They were currently splayed out around me.

"Let's start with the front left," I said.

Vel approached the limb and ran her hand along the black and gold carapace.

"That tickles," I joked.

"Goof! Also, I just found there are some small claws at the end."

"How did you think spiders clung to their webs?"

"Never really thought about it," Vel shrugged.

She put her hands underneath my leg and lifted. She gently moved every segment back and forth a few times. In my mind, I was focusing on what sensations it brought. It was like a limb waking up from a sort of torpor. I didn't feel pins and needles, thank Gaia, but every movement made it clearer and clearer in my mind. After a minute or two I managed to twitch a segment.

"Did you?" Vel asked.

"I think I'm getting it. Let go, I want to try lifting it on my own."

She carefully let go of the leg but I managed to keep it in the air. I slowly flexed each segment in every direction I could, letting my brain adapt. Afterwards, I planted my claw on the ground and pushed slightly. I felt my entire body rock slightly and let go.

"I'm going to need more legs to stand up," I said feeling a bit dumb.

"One down, seven more to go," Vel chuckled.

"Let's do the other front one next."

Vel nodded. Instead of walking around, she came right behind me and straddled my thorax. I felt shivers go down my spine as she leaned against my back and hugged me. I happily leaned into it. For a moment, I let go of my troubles with this new body and basked in the calming embrace of my girlfriend.

"Thanks," I whispered. "I think I needed that."

She kissed the back of my neck and dismounted on the other side with a big grin on her face.

----------------------------------------

It took Vel and I some time to go through each of my legs. For each one, I got the hang of the next faster. After probably two hours, I had some sort of control over all of my limbs.

"Moment of truth," I said.

Vel was next to my elven body, I was holding her hand for support. We were both understandably tense. I had tried getting up several times with more and more legs and each time had brought me closer. With all eight, I was confident I would be able to lift my body up but then there was the hard part, moving around.

I pushed with all of my limbs gently. My thorax slowly lifted off until it was a bit more than a meter off the ground. I flexed all my legs which made a clicking sound. That height felt comfortable, natural. I tested pushing myself higher and I could easily be two meters off the ground though I wasn't certain of my stability in this position.

"I have no idea how spiders walk," I said, "I've killed hundreds of Taratects but I never really paid attention."

I tapped my chin for a few seconds and froze. Maybe I was approaching the problem from the wrong angle. My mental enhancement had been off ever since I woke up and I hadn't turned them back on. Mind Partition had helped tremendously with Perception Sphere, maybe I could leverage it there as well. I enabled the skills one by one and the familiar feeling of being more washed over me.

I also noticed Alan's absence from my mental network. He must have gotten caught outside when the fight with the alpha happened and his body destroyed. I would summon him back once I had a handle on things.

"Figured it out?" Vel asked.

"I'm going to foist the problem off to Mind Partition," I said, "with more minds, it should be easier to control that many limbs."

"Not a bad idea."

With my Perception Sphere back, I could see my body in its entirety from every angle. I confirmed that my abdomen was roughly three times the size of my thorax in every dimension. I had a feeling that doors would be a recurring problem from now on.