Hunt (I)

The large cave was pretty much the same as Skitter had left it.

After reaching the abandoned territory, the swarm had spent the remainder of the day clearing out and reoccupying their old nest which, in their absence, had been colonized by an offshoot of the millipedes’ colony.

With the help of the other Thinkers, the overstepping prey had been quickly captured and stored for later consumption, not one of the armored creatures had been able to escape its hunters.

Alice, in the meanwhile, had spent her time gazing out into the expanse proper, her hazel and silver eyes shining lightly as they pierced through the thick darkness in front of her.

The human female had been surprisingly silent ever since they had reached their destination, the usual smattering of questions now much more muted.

Skitter definitely didn’t mind; he had never enjoyed having to shake his legs around as if a hatchling with his first web whenever he wanted to be understood.

Nonetheless, the male Thinker couldn’t stop himself from sending another glance towards the twolegs; his eyes moving past the sturdy weapon strapped to her waist to focus on the faintly luminescent pouch hanging almost casually beside it, tied to the belt with a resilient silken string.

Even now, he could barely believe the spectacle he had seen in the tunnels only a few hours before.

The moment he had seen the Ambusher reveal itself from its hidden spot in the walls, just a step away from their human, Skitter had almost surrendered himself to the certainty of her death.

After all, he had already survived one such encounter and, despite the numbers of his cluster at the time, the creature had left pretty much unscathed, their weapons too unsuited for bringing down such a beast.

Despite the certainty of failure that was in his mind, however, he hadn’t given up and had immediately pushed forward to hopefully prevent the monster from escaping. He needn’t have bothered.

After just a few strides of its long tentacles, the massive predator had suddenly stopped on its tracks, its body convulsing and writhing in pain from a single touch of the captured biomancer, who, for her part, hadn’t uttered a single sound, letting her body get weakly thrashed around by the creature’s strangely unresponsive tendril, one that would normally be able to crush the hardest chitin with its vicious grip.

The Ambusher had even attempted to directly use the energy from its core, casting a painfully bright light that had seared into his lidless eyes and heavily disoriented him.

As he and his kindred uselessly stumbled around, however, the human had simply elected to ignore the assault, silently weathering the blinding radiance as she finished the monster on the spot, not a single mark on its skin when it finally dropped dead.

Skitter had to admit it, the twolegs really had changed ever since their first encounter, and he was somewhat glad they were on the same side. Within the time of a hatchling’s molt, Alice had reached a level of core power akin to that of a full-fledged Thinker and she seemed eager to further improve. He couldn’t wait for his own core to form; he was sure it would come soon; he could almost feel it.

He was still deep into his own thoughts when the human suddenly turned around and, upon seeing him, pretty much jumped in the air in surprise, a muted gasp escaping her mouth while her hand traveled to the sharp, fang-like instrument she had recently asked Eisor to create in order to cut into the Ambusher’s flesh.

“H-hello, Skitter you took me by surprise, do you need anything? Did you clear up the rest of the millipedes in there?” she asked after calming down, her hand slowly moving away from the sheathed weapon.

He clicked affirmatively in reply, ignoring her reaction and signing for her to follow him as he retreated into the safety of his lair; they had a hunt to plan after all.

It took them less than a minute to reach the cavern the other Thinkers had chosen as a gathering point, his four equals turning towards him as soon as he appeared through the entrance.

Good. That’s all of us. Now that we have a secure position we need to start preparing for the actual operation. stated Chillushrith, the sharp clicks of her mandibles echoing in the otherwise silent hollow.

Suddenly, the tiniest of all the Thinkers sprung up from behind Ricee and immediately started talking, her agitated clicks and chitters soon drowning any other attempt to speak.

Yes! That’s all very interesting but what are we actually here to do? I’ve left Khemi all alone building the Great Ozren Bridge because you have told me that we need to obtain some cores for Mother’s cure but as far as I know Alice here has already been able to do so and I really don’t like wasting time when I could be improving on the greatest creation this colony has ever seen and who knows how many things the human knows— a small amount of silk landed between her fangs and muted the monologue as Eisor smoothly took her place.

As far as I know, Ozren, the cores we have just started producing are too new and weak to be of any real use for the cure. Alice will apparently need a lot of energy to heal Mother and we don’t have the time to gather enough if we only do it that way. she explained. Chillushrith and the little one have thus thought of a solution and all of us here have placed our trust in them. Nonetheless, I too wish to know where we are gonna find these cores. the Overseer paused for an instant before continuing.

By the way, the bridge is definitely not gonna be named after you. she pointedly stated, ignoring the muffled clicks coming from the Ozren’s glued mouth.

Before anyone else could speak again, Skitter decided to finally get to the pulp of the conversation and quickly plinked forward.

We will kill the titan that lives here. He boldly interjected, his statement received only with silence.

What? Asked Ozren, finally free of her gag but too stunned to seize the opportunity to speak more.

The little one is right, even if he ruined my explanation because he seems to be unable to wait. Chillushrith hissed in annoyance, We are gonna bring down the elder millipede that rules this expanse’s colony.

Once again the statement was received with silence, broken only by the soft whistling of Alice, now sitting down on a bundle of silk and very evidently understanding nothing of their conversation.

You want to bring down a titan? Us? With only two hundred soldiers? I thought we would be scouring the caves for suitable cores but a titan? Eisor asked disbelievingly, her normally calm tone completely forgotten as her pedipalps twitched in dumbfounded horror.

It is one of the youngest and weakest ones we know of; Mother would have easily fought him off if she was here. As far as Skitter has told me it has also become too bold for its own good and will soon try to encroach on our territory, we shall cull it before it happens. You should remember Mother’s lessons. Chillushrith condescendingly explained, receiving an offended hiss in response.

I do remember! But Mother is Mother and we are us! How are we supposed to do it without her? Eisor asked again, one of her legs slamming down on the limestone floor and, to her annoyance, getting stuck in the soft calcite.

Chillushrith replied calmly, her eyes fixed on Eisor’s. We must. Unless you want to scour the caves one at a time to find a webful of cores that might not even be enough. A titan’s core will surely solve our energy problems. I’ve already asked Alice and she said that if it’s similar to Mother’s size it should be okay.

Ricee suddenly pushed forward, her pedipalps brushing against the other as if to clean them.

I understand. Nonetheless, I’d prefer not to waste my dearest males uselessly, I’m working on a much-improved version and I’ll only need a few more generations to reach it. Let us plan to have the least amount of losses.

Well… First of all, we need to clear up as many of the lesser prey as possible. We need not external interventions, it is already gonna be a difficult fight…

The Thinkers started scheming, organizing and arranging their project and, after that, Skitter was elected to explain it to the human with a series of signs, clicks, and embroidered webs that took more than half of his resting cycle to complete. Nevertheless, when morning came everyone was ready.

Alice advanced silently through the no man’s land of the expanse; her body was ready to fight but her mind was wandering all over the place as she stared at the molten wax-like structure of the carsic cave.

It felt like years had passed since her first time stepping onto that thin stretch of flat stone, the first time her almost naked feet had landed on the cool ground of the bottom of the caves after descending the treacherous, slick natural steps of the ledge she had been stuck on for weeks, her only aid a poorly crafted ladder of bones and silk.

She broke away from her thoughts as her metal mace descended on the armored head of a restrained millipede, too busy struggling against the web blocking its legs to react to her presence. A couple of hard crunching blows took its life and one of the spiders beside her broke the formation and carried away the prey.

She was part of one of a few dozens of clusters of spiders, each one tasked to exterminate as many monsters as possible from the cave in order to clean up the battlefield even before the actual war had begun.

She had actually insisted to join the effort since both Eisor and Chillushrith didn’t want to risk her life any further, in the end, they had relented to her insistence but also decided that Skitter would have to accompany her at all times.

Alice didn’t mind.

The young woman knew the actual gap between her ability in combat and his. Just a few minutes before she had witnessed the small male end a particularly large Acid Beetle without even breaking his spidery version of a sweat, effortlessly dodging its sprays of acid and finishing it off with a single stab in its nape. She definitely felt a lot safer with him around, even with his unsufferable snark.

The girl’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a loud buzzing of insectile wings, a couple of the human-sized blind wasps had apparently heard the cracking of chitin and come to investigate.

Three of the four were instantly webbed down with precise globs of silk on their wings but the last one seemed to be particularly reactive, dodging the silken bolas and angrily droning straight towards her, its bone-white stinger extending towards her face in an attempt to stab her through.

Alice’s eyes widened and she swung wildly to intercept the lance but evidently miscalculated the actual range of her weapon. Her mace missed by a wide margin and its heavier head made her stumble forward; only a quick shot of adrenaline gave her the reaction time to actually throw herself on the ground, falling painfully but also causing the wasp to miss and crash stinger-first into the stone.

A second later, Skitter had finished it off, planting his fangs into the insect’s thorax and pumping it with paralyzing venom.

He tittered at her, mimicking her stumble as he wrapped up the wasps, sending yet another member of their group to carry all four towards their rapidly increasing reservoir of food.

“It’s my first time with this thing,” she said, motioning at the gory hunk of metal, “give me a bit of time, I’m basically having to learn by trial and error,” she told him lamely, earning yet another titter in response.

“Annoying as always,” she muttered, as they resumed their advance.

A few hours later, when she finally entered the nest, Alice was once again completely covered in sweat and the gory splatters of ichor from the many inhabitants of the expanse; behind her, a perfectly clean Skitter perkily ambled into the cave, earning a glare from the grimy biomancer who just knew that he would be sporting a shit-eating grin if his actual body anatomy allowed it.

“How the heck are you still clean? You killed like four times my amount of monsters and not a single one even touched you” she complained, shaking in the air the already-scabbed bite of a particularly dodgy screechling.

The only Son of Maath stilled for an instant, clicking to himself for a few seconds before moving straight towards her, one of his spikes raised threateningly as if to pierce her through.

“W-what” Alice had barely the time to stumble back one step and fumble with her mace that the sharp limb had already hit her on the chest, painfully sinking in her skin and flesh by a couple of centimeters before it stopped and Skitter fell back a couple of paces.

“What the fudge! That hurt!” she exclaimed as she sent a Hemostasis to the wound, forcing the coagulation of the small trickle of blood that was further sullying her dress.

“Go to hell, do it again and I’m gonna hit you!” she threatened him with her mace, only receiving a titter in response.

She turned back and tried to head further into the tunnel only for another spike to stab her in the butt, causing her to yelp in pain.

She turned around and literally launched the heavy mace towards the culprit, only for him to swiftly dodge the top-heavy weapon and letting it uselessly clang on the ground.

Skitter immediately stepped over it and raised both spikes threateningly, ready to pierce her through.

“Oh.” She could only say as the spikes stabbed forward with incredible speed, not even her adrenaline able to make her move out of the way. She closed her eyes.

No pain came.

She reopened them only to see the tiny spider push her mace towards her, pointing at it and then raising his bloodied spike once more.

Realization crashed upon her head.

“Are you training me?” she asked disbelievingly.

A click of assent.

“And you think that injuring me before a fight is gonna help me?” she angrily asked again.

Another affirmative click was instantly followed by a shrill tittering.

“Dammit.”

She definitely knew he was not going to give her an easy way out.

“Well bring it on!”

“Well you definitely did bring it on,” she groaned as she stretched, feeling the dozens of cuts, stab wounds, and bruises she still sported after the hours of training she had been forced to go through the previous night.

The muscles of her arms felt particularly sore after the workout she had given them and she could already feel the ripped fibers start to knit back larger than before, their healing much faster thanks to the increased regeneration.

She quickly consumed a couple of screechlings that she easily skinned and butchered with her new knife and her two healthy hands. The joy of being able to use two limbs to do things almost enough to overpower the disgusting taste of the blind bat’s meat.

After her breakfast, she proceeded to roughly clean herself with a bit of silk, something she had forgotten to do the previous night. She knew that she would have done a much better and faster job with the Lumen in her stomach but she wanted to avoid having to puke them up once more.

I definitely need to find a better way to store and access the glimmers, puking or pooping them are not good options. she thought as she moved out of the cave.

She had almost moved out of the nest itself to join the expedition when with her peripheral vision she caught a silvery shape blur towards her neck and frantically raised her mace to intercept it.

The two objects impacted with a clamor of metal and she immediately readied herself for the next attack.

A clicking chitter came out of the webbed hideout of the aggressor, soon followed by a very smug Skitter who, to her dismay, moved to position himself between her and the exit.

“Is this some kind of Karate Kid trial of ‘you need to show me that you are ready? Because it’s pretty much the biggest cliché ever” she moaned as she hefted the club in her hands.

Another titter was the only response she received.

Hoping to catch the spider by surprise, Alice immediately started with a thrusting attack, stepping forward at speed and extending the mace to its maximum length as if to ram it through Skitter’s face.

The arachnid reacted immediately by using one of his spikes to redirect the mace against the wall and another one to stab towards her chest. The first limb connected with ease but, expecting the parry and the retort, the girl had already let go of the mace and sidestepped to the right, letting the limb stab the air before answering in kind.

As the mace clanged against the wall and dropped to the floor with a sound of cracked stone, Alice made use of her successful feint to unsheathe the small knife strapped to her bandolier, immediately pushing into the arachnid’s guard.

As she did so, she still felt the painful jab of a third leg stabbing painfully into her thigh but her attack had already gone through Skitter’s defenses and sunk a couple of centimeters into his hard carapace, eliciting a small shriek of pain from the surprised creature.

Both of them retreated, Alice stepping back with a limp and a smug look already plastered on her face.

“I told you it was cliché,” she told him, “I knew you would do something like this and I’ve prepared all night for it.”

In her dark room, the girl had moved over half a dozens of combat scenarios between her and Skitter and also against other creatures, thinking of ways where she could actually triumph without getting brutally stabbed in the process.

It hadn’t really worked given the new hole in her flesh but actually hitting the little terror that was Skitter, even when he wasn’t fighting seriously, felt like a triumph.

After retrieving her mace, the girl quickly sealed their respective wounds and then finally stepped out of the cave, Skitter a couple of meters away from her and already busy recalling the rest of their swarm.

They got to work again, that day would be the last one of actual preparations, the next one was the hunt.

As she killed monster after monster, Alice marveled at the way her movements felt after just a few hours of getting beaten black and blue by Skitter. Despite his obvious enjoyment of her suffering, the spider was a very good teacher, taking his time to show her the way to deflect different types of attack.

Now, Alice could almost reliably parry or sidestep a portion of the wasps and millipede’s strikes, bat away the gliding screechlings, and escape an Acid Beetle’s somewhat predictable flesh-melting spray. She still tried as much as possible to avoid those.

That day, they pushed quite far into the expanse, ignoring the wall of spark blugs feasting on the stone and stepping past the ledge that led to her old home as they walked towards the large crevice she had once tried to explore.

When Skitter finally decided to retreat back to their lair, their cluster passed just a few meters away from the large field of sirenshrooms—as she had started to call them—and she immediately felt a whiff of their delicious smell.

This time, however, she could immediately feel the wrongness of their hallucinogenic call, their harmful toxins destroyed the moment they entered her system.

She stopped, surprised by the change in her reaction; even going as far as kicking one of the other spiders who, instead, seemed quite keen on exploring the deadly fungal thicket.

I guess my resistance has increased by quite a bit. she thought as she took another deep breath, feeling the delicious smell without the compulsive desire to eat it.

I wonder if…

Alice took a couple of steps toward the field, turning only when she heard Skitter’s clicks of warning.

She smiled at the anxious Thinker.

“I have a plan,” she stated before she turned once more and delved into the fungal forest.

*****

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