Have you ever had that sensation of falling while you’re sleeping? You’re just there, doing whatever in your dream, and then suddenly you feel your stomach drop and wake up knowing full well that you’ve been kidnapped and put on a plane from which you’ve just been pushed off.

No? Nobody on that last part? Well, that just means you don’t have enough fantasy. Or you’re not paranoid enough. I know they’re out there, looking for me.

Anyways, arachne got that a lot. Well, mostly the adults. They learned to be so attentive that they could be considered awake even when they slept. Which caused this phenomenon in many of them, very often. Truth be told, there wasn’t a single night when at least one of them, especially the [Carers] who, for obvious reason, were the jumpiest of them all, had that happen. Which wasn’t that bad… until you consider the fact that some arachne sleep upside down, hanging from tree branches. Arachne like Makira. Who, just last night, had fallen face first into a web she’d placed down there because she had learned her lesson a long time ago. She even managed to fall back asleep right away.

Isse and Siidi were falling to their deaths. Their stomachs were experiencing that same sensation many of their elders and sisters had to live with most nights. But they weren’t waking up.

No, instead Isse was screaming as Siidi was trying desperately to spin some webbing to hang from the wall. But she kept failing. Not at the spinning part, that is, but at the hanging one. Every time she managed to get even a piece of webbing to stick to a wall, some falling debris broke it. And she didn’t have the Skills to enhance her threads like she had in her past life. With those, her threads would’ve cut those falling pieces of stairs.

Which, by the way, still had to stop coming down. How many flights of stairs were there?

And that’s when it happened: one of the many pieces of falling marble and pearl hit the big bag of paintings she was holding. Honestly, she was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner.

She extended a hand down, trying to save them. But she had only two of those, and the paintings were falling so fast.

So she did the next best thing: she launched a small piece of spidersilk and snagged a memory out of the air, bringing it close. Isse was going to lose more of herself, but at least she wasn’t going to become an empty shell. Not completely.

The painting she’d taken showed her as a ten year old trying to climb a tree as her dad stood under her trying to make her change her mind. She’d already broken her arm once that way.

Hadn’t she ended up in that hospital she would’ve been a much better arachne, she thought to herself not for the first time.

But alas, the disease had come, and she hadn’t had much of a choice in the regard.

Siidi looked around and assessed their situation.

…

Ok, assessment done, they’re in deep shit. Deep enough to swim in it. And right now, she’d rather swim in some cow’s excrements than take a dip in those rainbowy waters.

Isse was falling right beside the wall, while she was just a meter too far to just attach herself to it with her spider feet. If only the little girl could do it for her.

She heard a splash.

The painting had hit the water. More memories lost. Isse stopped screaming, her expression growing blank. She looked at Siidi, tears in her eyes. And the old warrior knew what she was trying so hard to do now: remember. But how could she when she wasn’t even sure there had been something there? The only reason the girl knew she should remember… something, was that her mind felt too empty. The void was so great she was sure it should be filled by something. But what?

There was only one thing left. A single memory. Siidi was holding it.

If she just threw that down, Issekina would be no more. Just a blank canvas for her to fill and make into anything she desired. That is, if she managed to survive the water.

But she didn’t want to. She couldn’t bring herself to change her. To make her disappear. Give her a death worse than the one she had. At least she’d died in a way she desired: fighting with her sisters to help her family escape, to let her race survive. If she did this to Isse, she wouldn’t just die: she would disappear. And there was no honor in a death like that. She would no longer be able to say she’d ever had some form of honor.

So they fell, and she looked at the painting. Just a girl climbing a tree, her father watching over her.

Just like Queen of the Tree, a stray thought whispered in her mind.

Such a simple thought. And such a coincidence that exactly that painting had survived. Had Siidi believed the gods could be friendly to her species, she would’ve thanked them. Alas, she was sure they’d been the ones who had started this, somehow, so instead she thanked Death for giving her a chance.

She brought her hand to her mouth and bit on her pointer finger until she could taste blood, or what passed for it in one’s mind. Sure, she could’ve willed some to appear on her hand, because this was all in Isse’s head, but some things required actual sacrifice and desire, even in small amounts.

The moment she tasted iron on her tongue she touched the painting... and began drawing, promising herself she would fix this the moment the situation wasn’t so dire anymore.

She drew a little spider in place of Isse’s legs on the painting. Well, it was more like a red circle roughly filled in with eight little lines sprouting out all around it. An outsider could’ve probably mistaken it for a bad attempt at creating a small sun.

But here, in this mind, with this change willed by an arachne and done using the blood of an arachne, well: it couldn’t be mistaken.

The blood on the painting warped and flowed and changed. It twisted around, seemingly trying to escape the canvas, knowing full well it didn’t belong there. But the canvas was hungry. It was in its nature, to eat color and change and become more. And it gladly accepted this chance as well. Even if it meant the girl in the memory would change.

Even if it meant that the last memory left in Isse’s mind would be of her climbing a tree as an arachne while her father looked up at her.

Before Siidi’s very eyes Isse changed. Her legs, which had been flailing up until now, came close together and fused in one, solid, smooth, piece. They began growing, longer, larger, and changed color, becoming as red as her blood. An earthy red, mixed with a hint of her original chestnut. Eight little legs sprouted from her sides. And began flailing anew.

"Get on the wall!" she shouted at the other half of her soul.

Isse looked at her. Her eyes were still filled with that hopelessness, with that knowledge she was missing something. But she was an arachne. She’d always been as far as she could remember. And with that knowledge, came instincts.

She lunged towards Siidi, her hand stretched in an attempt to save her sister. No arachne left behind!

Somewhere far away, on the continent of Aknos, in the mountains where the dwarven kingdom had been established so long ago, every single dwarf was hit by a sudden commotion. They shed a single tear, then went back to work.

Her hand caught Siidi’s wrist, and she heaved her towards her. She weighed a lot more than the little arachne, but desperation and the general absence of gravity, together with a small, involuntary, mental push on Isse’s part, worked together to get her closer to her. Then she latched onto the wall.

Their fall stopped abruptly. Or rather, long enough for Siidi to smack into the wall and attach herself to it. Right before she heard a crack and a scream. Isse.

Why? Well, what happens when you hit water at high speed? Answer: it feels like hitting cement. Because your speed is reduced faster than the water can cushion it.

This was more or less what had just happened to Isse. Her legs had stopped the fall, but she, and Siidi, had been going so fast that her newly formed spider legs couldn’t take it: one of them broke on the spot, bending at an unnatural angle, while two others were detached from the wall. Had she not done so, the number of broken legs would’ve increased to three.

But they’d done it! They’d stopped falling.

The water reached out hands towards them, but couldn’t catch them. They were just a few meters short.

Siidi sighed. They’d been falling for no more than ten seconds, but it’d felt like hours.

"How are you Isse?" she asked.

Her only answer was a whimper of pain. Right, stupid question. The girl hadn’t even received pain conditioning.

"Hang onto me little one. We have to keep climbing."

She crawled upwards and lowered herself to help Isse put a hand around her shoulders. Then they began climbing again.

More than once they had to move around to dodge some falling piece of debris, but fewer and fewer kept falling. Until they outright stopped.

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Both arachne took a sigh of relief and slumped slightly. Which was sort of strange to look at since they were perpendicular to the wall.

"Try to make a rising platform again. This time we should be safe."

And they were.

Isse concentrated and a small platform crawled out of the wall under them. It wasn’t as big as the last one, probably because the girl herself didn’t feel safe creating a bigger one. She was expecting another piece of debris to fall on them at any moment as some sick joke.

But nothing happened.

Which still didn’t manage to get them to calm down.

They looked down at the churning mass of colored water as it slowly kept rising. Now that they weren’t about to die (probably), they had to admit it was kind of beautiful. The type of beauty that only death can have. That so few people can truly appreciate. A collateral beauty.

The colors swirled and changed, creating new forms and images. If you looked at it hard enough, you could, every now and then, see something: a little girl running with her friends. A mother reprimanding said little girl when she came back home covered in dirt and grass. A teen receiving her first kiss. A crying girl on a chair.

That and so much more. But at some point Isse had simply stopped looking. She didn’t know anything about what she was looking at. It was filling her with a somewhat distant pain, even a bit of nostalgia, but it didn’t fill the void in her head.

The same couldn’t be said about Siidi though. She kept looking at those strange pictures of someone’s past, playing and replaying themselves in that sea of paint and water. It felt like she was intruding, but that didn’t make sense, because anything shown there she’d already seen while walking the corridors of Isse’s mind.

But then why…?

Oh.

Yes… apparently now she’d developed something like a conscience. She didn’t like that. It made her feel bad for everything she’d tried to do to get control of this body.

She wanted her money back! Being a bastard was way easier!

She sighed, and averted her gaze.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

Isse looked down at her broken leg and extended a hand to try and touch it, then thought better and shook her head.

"It doesn’t hurt if I don’t move it."

Siidi nodded: "Don’t worry, it’ll be over soon."

The little arachne nodded and looked up.

An uncomfortable silence fell on them. They didn’t know what to tell each other. One because she literally could remember nothing other than the last few minutes and a time when her father hadn’t wanted her to climb a tree. Why was that though? Arachne were good at climbing trees. It would be like telling a toddler not to crawl around on the floor. Unnatural.

Well, that memory felt unnatural, truth be told. As if something wasn’t the way it should, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

"I’m sorry Isse. For everything. I… I’ll fix everything I can, I promise."

Isse looked at her other soul-half. And bent her head sideways in confusion in that very arachne-like way that gave shivers to so anyone who saw it.

"Why are you sorry? You helped me. You saved something of me. I should be the one that’s sorry for putting you through this."

Siidi shook her head: "You just don’t remember. But don’t worry, when you will, because I’m sure you will, I promise I’ll help."

She held out her hand.

Isse looked at it. Then remembered something. A promise she’d made to her father right after that time at the tree. A pinky promise.

It felt right for the moment.

"Then let’s swear on our pinkies. You’ll help, and I won’t be angry at you. How about it?" she smiled. She still didn’t know why she should be angry, but maybe this way she wouldn’t.

Meanwhile Siidi stared at her little finger. Then looked at her own, uncertain. She’d never heard of something like this. Or she’d forgotten. One of the two.

Still, she nodded, and they latched pinkies.

"I swear," she said.

And the world changed.

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

Five minutes later, they reached the top of the tower.

And, right there, overlooking the endless expanse of darkness outside the mind castle, was a big, red, button. The words ‘The Friendo Button’ were carved on its top.

Once upon a time I met a man who said that every problem should be solved by pressing a big, red, button.

Grandmother’s words, overheard during the last Trial, replayed back in Siidi’s mind. She dearly hoped this was one of those buttons.

"Let’s press it," she said.

"Yes. Together," agreed Isse.

And, without further ado, because the water was still rising after them and they really didn’t want to risk something else happening, they reached out and pressed the button.

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

The System had observed the whole Trial. And, as always, it had judged. It was sure about what one of the two would get. The other one, though, was still in the in-between.

It would wait and see. It was sure she would make the right choice. But, for now:

[Soul Mage Level 4!]

[Skill - Mana Sight Obtained!]

[Skill - Mana Manipulation (Basic) Obtained!]

[Spell - Colored Water Arrow Obtained!]

[Skill - Protect Memories Obtained!]

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

Isse woke up screaming in Grandmother’s clearing.

She screamed, then screamed some more, then for good measure did it again.

She felt the phantom pain in one of her legs, together with every single memory of her life coming back all at the same time with the force of a sledgehammer swung by Level 50 [Miner] with every possible empowering Skill possible put on the hit.

After a short while, she managed to stop and look up.

Grandmother was staring at her, as emotionless as ever. Or was she? Was there a hint of a smile on her lips?

"You have succeeded."

Yet there wasn’t a hint of emotion in her voice.

"Fuck you you old bitch, that was hell!" she shouted.

Then she realized she had just shouted that.

Then she realized she had just spoken.

Someone in the clearing laughed.

Isse turned around and saw Makira. She had fallen to the ground and was laughing her spidery ass off.

"Can’t deny that mother, you did make her go through… whatever hell is. Probably something bad."

There was nothing to laugh about here!

"Yes, I have. It helped her."

Was all she said. Grandmother didn’t seem fazed in the least by the fact she’d been insulted.

"I hate you!"

And Isse ran away from her.

Makira looked at her go, then sighed and got ready to follow her.

"Don’t. She will reach Aru. Tell her to make the girl something. She deserves it. Maybe something to hide her."

She fell silent. Then added: "She has become a [Soul Mage]. She is good with her head. Tell her to come meet me tomorrow afternoon. I will teach her."

"I don’t think she’ll want to see you, mother."

"Then keep reminding her. When she will feel ready, she will come here. Tell her I will be kinder."

She turned to look ahead again, ready to rest again.

"Tell me, was it you? Did you make her lose her memories in that [Trial] like you did with me?"

Grandmother didn’t answer. Which was all the answer Makira needed.

"I told you not to do it. Ever again. No one should feel that."

"It helped you, and your situation was simpler."

"It’s not a matter of easy or difficult. You promised."

"It was that or her eventual death."

Makira sighed, not for the first time wishing her mother had never gotten that damned Skill: [Lock Memories].

Then she walked away.

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

That night, as Isse slept in her hammock snuggled with Anda, Siidi walked in her rebuilt mind.

The Castle had changed. No longer was it just a grand cathedral-castle filled with corridors of Isse’s memories. Now an old, dusty, library was mixed, fused, to it. The walls were wooden and grand, no less decorated than the marble with which it elegantly changed places here and there.

Her sisters had always found it strange, how her Mind Castle was a library, when she was a [Warrior]. They had expected something like an arena.

They hadn’t seen some of the places she’d been to, though. The marvel of those libraries. Much could be said of arachne, but they weren’t bookburners, that is for sure. They valued knowledge. And beauty.

So she walked among those corridors and stacks. Until she reached a blank wall, with an empty space that was perfect for a painting.

There, she placed the one thing she’d managed to save during that Trial. The memory she’d changed.

She reached out and tried to remove the blood. But it was no use. She’d already tried that. It was part of the canvas. Yet she couldn’t leave it like that. How…

Something made a shuffling sound at her feet. She looked down, and saw a paint brush, bristles colored blue. Just like the trousers the little Isse in that painting had worn.

She looked around. But there was nobody around. Only shadows here and there.

She took the brush in hand, looked at it, then at the painting. And got to work.

The System smiled.

[Condition: Hostile Soul-Half Removed!]

[Conditions Met: Hostile Soul-Half -> Mind Curator!]

[Mind Curator Level 5!]

[Skill - Recall Memory Obtained!]

[Skill - Would you Kindly -> Share Instincts!]

[Skill - Make Suggestion Removed!]

[Skill - A Memory a Day: My Past Obtained!]