As your world goes dark, you hear a loud skittering, followed closely by a screech. You felt something slam against the carapace sliding down your spike. It rocked to the side. Another slam followed closely by a yell from a familiar voice.

It takes you a moment to recognize Ace's voice, "Y/N! Come on! you can't die now!"

You open your eyes and see another spider, this one smaller, along with Ace. They positioned themselves under the massive spider and heaved, slowly lifting it up and away.

As you feel the weight releasing, you withdraw the spikes, returning to your fluid form. You slide out from under the corpse.

They release the weight and it hits with a ground-shaking thud.

Ace rushes over and kneels next to you, "Y/N! I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have left!"

"Ace..." You groan as you reform, "I told you... You needed to go."

She smiles with tears in her eyes, "I said I'd go find help. And I found some."

She gestured towards the spider. You turn your head to see it. It chitters happily, holding up one injured leg. You recognize it as the spider you had injured earlier. It had run off.

You look at the larger one and realize that it's different. You hadn't noticed in the heat of the moment that it had been different.

You mentally sigh, lacking the organs in your fluid form to actually sigh. At the same time, the large corpse gives one final shudder before it seemed to slump even lower.

You're presented with another screen:

You glance over at the smaller spider. It was standing there with a blank look in it's eyes. You form back to humanoid and lean over to Ace, "Is... It alright...?"

She chuckles, "How's it feel to be on the other side of things? You were the same way when you gained sentience."

Suddenly the spider shudders and shines a blindingly bright white light. You shield your eyes from it. As you sense the light easing up, you look back to see a man standing there. He had pale, almost translucent skin, two main eyes with a few more eyes around his head. He was nude, but you could see a total of six arms, four of which were pressed flat around his abdomen.

He blinks and looks around, "This is... huh. Sorry, I expected it to feel a little different..."

Ace smiles, "Welcome. You must be new to this sentience thing."

He shrugs, "I've been sentient for a while. I think it was something like six months after my birth. I'm not a lower tier monster, unlike the changeling there. It's just a little weird to not have my thorax anymore... Or my hardened carapace. This form is spongy. Squishy. It feels both weaker and stronger at the same time somehow."

You groan as you stand up, drawing a worried look from Ace. You look down at her, "I'll be fine. Just need to let my core heal for a little while before I do anything too strenuous."

The spider-male-thing walks over to you and holds one of his hands out, "I'm glad to see you're alright. A low level, low-tier monster like you still managed to injure me. I knew you were special, so I tried to convince Ace here to come back and help. I'm glad she was able to understand what I had been saying."

Ace stands and shakes her head, "I didn't really understand. But I could tell you wanted me to follow you. When I realized you were leading me back to Y/N, I knew you were good."

He grinned, "Well, enough with that. Shall we formally introduce ourselves? My name is Xoctir the Arachnid. Well, I suppose I'm an Arachnathorpe now. This vision of necro-beauty was my mate. But don't get me wrong, I hold you no ill intent. You killed our children, injured me, then killed my mate. Lucky for you, spiders don't have a strong sense of family ties. If you hadn't killed her, she likely would've killed me later on."

He turned and ran his hand over her shell, "She was... Unstable. Even for a spider. She had a special taste for humanoids. I'd tried to talk her down repeatedly, warning her that exactly what happened would happen. More would come. Stronger ones."

Ace looks around at the other, smaller spider corpses, "We... Actually didn't know about her. If we had, it wouldn't have been a quest for us. Can I ask what species she was?"

You nod, "Yeah, she seemed to teleport above me."

Xoctir smiles over at you, "We were theraphosa colossi. A rare breed most closely related to the tarantula species. We're capable of short bursts of speed that can look like we're teleporting. She likely jumped, anchoring herself with silk to prevent overshooting the jump."

Ace clears her throat, "Cool, cool. So, two things. First, would you mind putting on some clothing? And second, what are your plans?"

Xoctir sits down and begins spinning some silken thread, before quickly forming a pair of pants and a shirt, thanks to the use of his multiple arms. As he creates his clothing, he looks up at the both of you, "I actually don't have any plans. I just felt like I should help out."

Ace leans forward and looks over at you, "What do you say, Y/N? Should we invite him to join us? I mean, we could certainly use another friend."

You shrug, "I'm not too fond of the idea of living with a spider that tried to kill us shortly before we killed his mate and after we killed his children... Even if he says he didn't feel any real affection for them, he could be planning something..."

Xoctir stands up and quickly dresses before walking closer, "Look... I'm humanoid now. I just want to experience what my former prey enjoyed so much. I promise, I'll be no trouble."

You sigh, physically lifting and slumping your shoulders to exaggerate the effect, "Fine. But any funny business and we'll report you to the guild. Even if we can't beat you, they have stronger adventurers."

You turn to leave, with Ace and Xoctir following closely behind you.

You nod.

"I don't know... I think he may have a plan to avenge his mate or something. That's the only reason I can think of why he'd risk saving us."

Ace looks up at you, "What's up? What's the system saying?"

"Just that Xoctir may have ulterior motives."

Ace turns and smiles, "I think you're right. He's had ulterior motives ever since I met him."

"Really? And what would those be?"

Ace winks, "I think he wants to fuck you. You're quite sexy. And the fact that you can be anyone and anything... Plus he's got a nice dick. Not so large it'd hurt but not so small you wouldn't feel it. If you want to experience sex as a female, he'd be a good first choice."

You smirk at her, "But I enjoy sex with you plenty. Why would I need more?"

She leans in and whispers in your ear, "It's common for strong beings to have a harem... Better chance for a strong child. And besides, I'm wet just thinking about watching him drill into you... A tight little pussy with his gorgeous rod pistoning in and out... Mmm... I could even sit on your face... Gods I'm so horny..."

You let out a soft chuckle, "You're a freak."

"You love it."

Xoctir came up alongside you both, "What's the conversation about?"

You sigh and continue walking.

***

Back at Ace's cabin, Xoctir looks around, "This isn't bad. Might be a bit cramped with all of us in here, though."

You shrug, "I usually sleep in my liquid form, so I don't take up much room. That said, it's about dinner time, isn't it?"

Ace nods, "Definitely. I'm starving. Xoc, can you eat human food or are you still restricted to a spider diet?"

"I'm able to eat most foods, I believe."

You nod and set about making a meal, following the detailed instructions from your system. Once it's finished, you plate up and set out a plate in front of Ace, followed quickly by a plate for Xoctir and finally, one for yourself.

Ace pokes at it a little, "This looks... different... what is it?"

You nod, "It's apparently called stroganoff."

Ace pokes at a mushroom, "And... it's safe to eat...?"

"My system says so. She says it's one of her favorite meals from her previous life."

Xoc stabs a couple noodles and a mushroom onto his fork, "Well... I'll try it. But what's this system you mention? I've never heard of that."

You explain the basics of it to him.

Ace sniffs at one of the noodles, "I still can't believe your system is a reincarnation... I've never heard of THAT happening before..."

She takes a small nibble. As the flavor covers her tongue, she gasps and dives in, quickly devouring the food. She holds up the plate, "More please!"

Xoc laughs and tries a bite. His reaction, while less vibrant, was no less honest. "I could definitely go for seconds, provided there's enough."

You grin and dish out more for everyone. Once they finish, Xoc stands and takes the empty plates to wash while Ace leans back and pats her stomach, "I've never felt so... So... Satiated... It's like I had a full meal and an orgasm all rolled into one..."

Xoc calls from the kitchen, "You're rather... Sexual, aren't you?"

Ace beams, "Can you blame me? I've got a roommate that can be literally anything and we just recently added a sexy spiderboi!"

Xoc leaned back, around the cooling box, "Hey, I never said I'm a roommate nor will I be in any harem. I plan to have my own. But... I suppose we could enjoy the night. Maybe. I'll think about it." He went back to washing the dishes while you and Ace moved into the main room. She climbs onto her bed and lays back, over the blanket.

You sit on the floor and start allowing yourself to relax, your skin beginning to ooze with your base black fluid.

Xoc walks in and looked between the two of you, "Well, it seems it's about that time. Shall we get some sleep? Or maybe one of you has an idea for what we could do to pass some time?"

Ace smiles, "Nah. We usually just relax and do our own thing."

Xoc nods and sits by the door and started weaving his threads. Your vision goes dark and you let yourself relax into a puddle of black goo as you pass into sleep.

Just before your consciousness fades, one more screen pops up: