My head hurt.

I could see nothing…

Where was I?

All I knew was that I was floating in some kind of liquid. I don’t know how, but I felt cramped at the same time. My body felt like it was being pressed against from all sides.

I tried opening and closing my eyes, but nothing happened.

Something was wrong…

I felt arms… I think? The troubling part was where I didn’t feel my legs… at least not the ones I was used to…

I felt… more…

I had more than two legs?

If only I could see where the hell I was. I tried moving my… arms? And found something of a barrier all around my body. I started panicking. I had no idea what happened. Where had that portal taken me? Had those black tendrils put my soul in some kind of prison? Panic turned into despair as the cold dark that surrounded me seemed to be endless.

What happened?

Elysa, help me.

Then, within a fraction of a second, a blue square showed up before me in my vision. Despite the darkness all around me, I could see it clearly. There seemed to be text written on it.

To Kealyna

I apologize for what happened. Know that none of it was my doing. It appears that someone else has infiltrated my domain and placed a curse on the portal that you were sucked into. I do not know why, or how.

I only know of a few other gods that are able to use shadow magic like that, Hograd being the most powerful of them. I don’t want to accuse him without knowing, but be wary of that name.

Whatever happened, I will try to figure it out. What I can tell you is that a curse was placed on you and you have been changed into a spider.

In the last moments you were in my realm, I infused your soul with a portion of my power in order to counter the curse as best I could, with a blessing.

This blessing will assist you in your journey and allows you to grow stronger. For any information you need on this, just think of my name and ask a question about anything. This blessing will assist you as best as it can.

Despite the curse on the portal, it still sent you to the world I had intended, meaning your parents are alive and well here.

I am unable to talk to you myself directly from our realm, but I will be watching your endeavors with great interest. I hope this will be enough assistance in your journey to find the happiness that I had initially promised you.

Once more, I apologize for things turning out this way.

Kind regards,

Elysa

What was this? I had been blessed by the goddess? But wait… I was… a spider? What? Why? How?

I felt lost once more. I wanted to live, I really did, but… as a spider? How was I supposed to survive, let alone live like this? Even if I did manage to solve those issues, I wouldn’t be able to find my parents who were supposedly already in this world, according to Elysa. The best I could possibly do was gestures, maybe draw with quills.

What would they even think?

I decided I would try nonetheless. If this blessing could give me the strength to see my parents again, I would take the opportunity with both hands.

I used my… arms to smash against the barrier that surrounded me. It took a couple of tries, but eventually, I managed to create a tear, and soon after, a small opening. I expanded the gap after that until I could move out of this stupid spider egg.

I dragged myself forward with my arms, (honestly, they weren’t arms, but I couldn’t see what they were) I knew I had multiple sets of legs, but I couldn’t control them properly.

First, I needed to get out of here.

Once I had escaped my confines, I was disappointed to learn that my vision was still severely limited. My sight radius was huge, but my actual vision was extremely blurry and dark. The next feeling that I registered was hunger. I was starved, ravenous for food. I needed to find something to eat or I was positive my new life wouldn’t last long.

I felt my legs and tried moving them. To my surprise, I could control them quite well. Even if I had no idea about how to walk on four sets, I still managed to move myself forward with them, albeit with the necessary effort.

This vision was really frustrating, though. I couldn’t make out anything more than generic shapes.

And I had eight eyes to boot.

I looked behind me to see the vague outline of the egg that I’d hatched from. Beyond it, I could see many more of the same outlines. However, the other eggs seem to not have hatched yet.

First things first, I needed food, and possibly water. From the darkness, I assumed I found myself in some kind of cave, and I wasn’t sure where I was going to find food, or what I’d eat in the first place.

My senses started to sharpen, at least the ones that made me aware of my own limbs. I seemed to possess two large limbs with fangs at the end of them below my head. I could move them out to the side and back to the middle. I imagined I had a mouth somewhere as well, although I wasn’t quite aware of it yet.

After a minute or so of trying, I found I could release venom from my fangs. I immediately stopped releasing it once I found out how to do it.

I’d need that.

Come to think of it, Elysa said she promised to erase my memories of everything after the incident, so that I could live my life without them weighing down on me. That had obviously not happened. I clearly didn’t have the mind of an eight-year-old right now. Besides that, I still had parts of what happened back then play out in my mind.

I didn’t have time to reflect on it now. I’d leave that for later. Right now, I needed to find some food, and there was plenty in front of me.

As much as this was a macabre thing to do, I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me by. I still had an elven mind and spirit, with the will to do whatever it took to survive, and I appeared to be the first one to hatch. I hoped these other spiders weren’t as developed as me.

I skittered up to one of the eggs and bashed my front arms – pedipalps, I seemed to remember they were called – against it until I cracked it open. Fluids spilled out before I saw something move and struggle inside the egg.

With no time to lose, hunger gnawing on every fiber of my being, I expanded the opening until I found the spider inside the egg. I then sank my fangs in its black bulbous abdomen and let venom flow into it.

It seemed I was right about these spiders not being as developed as me. This one, in particular, didn’t seem to know how to control their limbs and soon stopped struggling as my venom did its work.

You have killed a Tiny Black Cave Spider: EXP+12

Level Up!

Kealyna has reached level 2!

You have been awarded 1 EP.

What the fuck?

Two blue squares floated before me in my vision.

Beyond the fact that the first one told me I’d killed a tiny black cave spider, I didn’t understand anything else.

Was this part of the blessing that I had read about in my first message? It had to be. What did it say again? Something about me asking when thinking about Elysa’s name, right? I could grow stronger, I knew that, but wasn’t there a limit on how strong a simple spider could get?

I sighed mentally as I watched the blue square fly away.

I would have to look into it. First, I needed to eat. Then, I imagined it would be a good idea to get out of here with haste and find a safe spot. I wasn’t planning to get cannibalized myself.

I removed my fangs from my dead sibling before coming to the realization that I had no idea how to eat.

Hey, Elysa, could you help me out here? How do I eat?

Spiders have no teeth. They eat their prey by injecting digestive enzymes into it with their fangs, they then suck in the fluids.

That sounded disgusting. Not that eating spiders was a pleasant prospect, but this was worse than I thought.

How do I do that? I somehow knew how to inject venom, but those were not digestive juices, right?

I received no answer...

Why couldn’t I just have a mouth with teeth, and eat like a normal person?

Weak jaws and teeth can be evolved for 1 EP (currently 1)

Would you like to evolve selection?

I had no idea how to eat in the way that was laid out for me...

I had to eat to live...

In that case...

I guess so?

I felt pain shoot through my body, as the area below my eyes and fangs was forcibly molded into something different. When the pain started to fade away, I regained some sense of my former self as I felt a mouth that I could open and close, complete with teeth and all.

This was what the goddess’s blessing meant? Was this how I would grow stronger?

But if I could grow teeth…

Elysa, can I get my elven body back?

Negative.

Well, so much for that thought.

I was going to have to find out as much as I could about this blessing and this body, but first, I was going to do the most disgusting thing I’d ever done.

I planted my mouth on the dead spider’s abdomen in front of me and started tearing away the carapace with my jaws.

Not being able to see much was probably a blessing in itself. I’d rather not see what I was eating right now.

The taste of spider innards was quite… unpleasant to say the least, but it was the only thing I had at hand right now. I’d make do with it.

After eating as much as I could, I started to skitter away from the unhatched eggs, looking for safety.

Judging from the ground here that was all rocky stone as far as I could tell, I was in a cave. There were bound to be some nooks and crannies here where I could hide to find out more about this so-called ‘Blessing’. I already had an idea of what I would do, but I wanted to know more first.