It took a few days for the dwarves to get situated in the village. They had to get a hut ready with the two women desiring a modicum of privacy. That was not something the goblins cared about as I found out. Only the older ones who had grown up in the ork town even knew what the dwarves wanted. It was a weird little kink of their culture I never paid attention to since I only ever entered Roguk’s hut. Apparently, they lived in family groups and took off their clothes at home to reduce wear and prolong their lifespan. Roguk was the only one using a partition in his hut since he did not want to expose his body to the alchemical components.

It was not much of an issue but delayed the search for ores by a few days since the goblin solution was to build another hut. From stone, of course. With the pickaxes I had brought, the building material was actually accessible and the dwarven knowledge made it even easier than the goblins’ first attempts.

I did not spend much of that time in the village. Instead, I searched for a major node close enough to gather some crystals for Alex. I was thinking of just bringing it over with a Node in a Jar. That would require another stabilizer, though. Without it, the nodes would start to drain each other if placed too close. I was lacking the quartz to make one, though.

It took me two days of scanning the mountains until I found what I was looking for. A large node was a few hours flight north hidden in a little crevice. From the closest mountain, I was able to make out the human plains. During the daytime, a few plumes of smoke could be seen in the sky. A village had to be nearby. Maybe Ugark and Sra had found their way there? I hoped they were doing well.

The node looked to be earth, crystal and water. A bit of a weird mix. From my height, I could not quite make out the last aspect but it felt a bit like life. Since it was a major node, I was confident to find a node guardian. I just hoped they were sapient and reasonable enough for me to engage in trade.

I carefully closed in from the air, keeping an eye out for any hidden spaces. Once I reached about halfway, I started to see weird reflections in the air. It took me a minute to realize what they were. Spider threads. The node was covered in webs thin enough to escape even my superior eyesight unless I got close enough. Granted, I was still almost 200 metres above when I spotted them.

With the scale of the web, I was confident the spider was at least as large as I. That screamed evolution to me, now I only had to hope it was a sapient animal and not a magical beast.

I decided to take the open approach. Against an ambush hunter, I did not want to just run into their nest. Especially with the high likelihood of some kind of [camouflage] Skill. And so I hooted in a regular pattern as I circled downwards. I had taken my metal form, just in case, and also gotten out my supersensory matrix. When I got within 100 metres, I started looking for a connection with another soul. I quickly realized, there was a large number of living beings hidden in the rocks and started touching for someone sapient. What took me another few minutes to figure out was that almost all of the responses I got were sapient. With the location and the fact that there was a giant spider nest in between me and many of the souls, I had assumed otherwise. Was this some kind of spider civilization? I clicked my tongue in annoyance. Of course, my body’s first thought after that would be ‘what a delicious feast’ rather than anything… reasonable.

I found the biggest soul and established a connection, sending a feeling of greeting and a question of meeting up along with putting them into words. Whoever I connected to seemed a bit shocked but a few moments later I got a response.

“I have not heard those words in a long time. Why are you here, human?”

Despite the deep register, the voice sounded feminine. It tasted the words with careful consideration as if not having spoken or heard Ordugh for years.

“I’m not human”, I answered, “Nor have I ever really interacted with any of them. I was looking for a major node to help my friend evolve.”

“Not… human?”

“I am an owl.”

“Curious… Let us meet.”

Along with those words came the image of a clearing in the valley below. It took me a while to spot it with my perspective being wholly different but after a minute of searching, I saw a huge spider peek out between the trees. I carefully landed in the middle of the glade and looked at the being I was mentally connected to. She was a little different than expected with the legs spread a little more along its sides and the abdomen not much thicker than the thorax. Cyan stripes with red spots ran around her legs and along her back. Two large eyes dominated her face with the other six spread around and below them. She reached almost twice my height, maybe 150 centimetres in total. I reformed the connection with [Telepathy] before addressing her once again.

“Greetings. I am Fio. I am a friend of dwarves and goblins and many sapient animals. Even two orks that were not too aggressive.”

“Welcome, Fio. I am Selene of the Plateau. What brings you here to my home?”

“My friend wants to reach major enrichment. She needs a major node or crystals from one to get there. Your node was the closest I found.”

“I see.”

The spider fidgeted with her fangs, a slightly transparent blue liquid dropping to the ground.

“May I [Identify] you?”, she asked.

“If I can do the same.”

“Of course.”

The next moment, the unpleasant feeling of something invading the privacy of my soul came over me. I did not wait and responded in kind.

[Identify]

Species: Giant Blue Jumping Spider (adult)

Age: 192

Name: Selene of the Plateau

Gender: female

Level: 133

I hissed as I saw the level. She hissed at the same time, most likely seeing my Class.

“[Assassin]!”, she spat into my mind.

“I do not want to harm you or yours. If that was my plan I would not approach this openly.”

Before I could react, Selene had jumped on top of me and I was on the ground, wings spread underneath her body. At least this gave me a good shot at hitting [Winged Death].

“Speak truthfully?”

“Yes. I will not harm you or yours unless provoked.”

My head pointedly turned at the fangs right above me and I clicked my tongue.

“Right now, you are provoking me.”

Something moved right then in the corner of my eye and after a moment, Selene slowly stepped back.

“How do you know?”, she asked.

“That you’re not alone? I can feel for souls with my artefact. Sapients feel different from non-sapients.”

She was silent for a minute. Then, she seemed to make a decision.

“You will not get to my node. Nor your friend. I can trade crystals.”

“That’s fine. How many can you give and what do you want in return?”

“Four major crystals. Thaumonomicon. Brass. Gold. Iron.”

“I can get that. How much? You only have the four?”

“Yes. A lot. When?”

I did some quick calculations. I could make a trip to buy some things in about a week. My finances, however, were taking a serious hit right now. Maybe I should make use of the crystals in the white forest. If we could actually grow trees on the farm and good wood that way, they would no longer need to keep the area saturated. With the dwarves’ help, it would be easy to harvest them en masse. That might defeat the purpose, though. If we did that we might as well just dig straight to the node.

“I will bring as much as I can in two weeks.”

The spider shifted side to side.

“One month. No storage.”

“Okay. One month. If Stormbringer comes before then, I will come here after.”

“Deal.”

That was that and I took off after bidding her farewell. I had identified her species earlier and was just waiting to read it.

[Giant Blue Jumping Spider]: This spider was once human. After being exiled, she finally realized what she truly was and evolved. As a Progenitor, her offspring has a high chance of being sapient at birth or soon after.

What. The. Fuck. That was a human? I would have never expected that. And a Progenitor to boot! Now, I needed to come through on the deal if only to improve our relationship. I had so many questions. Sapient offspring as well, at least with a high chance. I was very interested.

When I returned to the village and told Alex about the encounter she had half a mind to go there and negotiate herself. She was just as curious as I to learn more about evolution. When I remembered Selene was over level 100 in her race level, I was even more intrigued. Only, she seemed to truly like being on her own. Or with her family, I supposed. We would have to be careful with building a friendship.

The dwarves were almost even more ecstatic. There was a Guardian nearby, after all. Once I told them my flight of a few hours was at least three days of travel for them, they started to calm down. We decided to look into growing trees over the next few days with the dwarves helping dig the farm. I had to make a few more vis relays in preparation. After that, it was time to start mining. By that point, I would be back on my way to Borsdown once again. Hopefully with a hoard of vis crystals to sell.